THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 


THE  UNIVERSITV  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,   ILLINOIS 


THE    BAKER    &   TAVLOR   COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 

THE   CAMBRIDGE    UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
LONDON 

THE   MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 

TOKYO,  OSAKA,  KYOTO,  FUKUOKA.  SENDAl 

THE  COMMERCIAL  PRESS,  LIMITED 

SHANGHAI 


The 

SCHOOL 

and 

SOCIETY 

By]OWH   DEWEY 


REVISED  EDITION 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO  •  ILLINOIS 


COPYRIGHT   1900   BY  THE    UNIVERSITY   OF    CHICAGO 

COPYRIGHT     1900    AND     I9I5    BY    JOHN     DEWEY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED.    PUBLISHED  NOVEMBER  1  899 

Secona  Edition  August  iQlj 

Thirteenth  Impression  November  IQ32 


COMPOSI  D  AND  PRINTED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS,  U.S.A. 


9 


1/ 


U5  "lis 
Dh  As- 


TO 

MRS.  EMMONS  BLAINE 

TO   WHOSE   INTEIJEST   IN   EDUCATIONAL 

REFORM 

THE   APPEARANCE   OF   THIS   BOOK 

IS   DUE 


M515954 


CONTENTS 

PAGE        ^ 

I.  The  School  and  Social  PIiogress.       .       .  3  ^Sc^- 

II.  The  School  and  the  Life  of  the  Child    .  31 

III.  Waste  in  Education 59 

IV.  The  Psychology  of  Elementary  Education  87 

V.  Froebel's  Educational  Prlnciples       .       .     iii 

,'■'1 
VI.  The  Psychology  of  Occupations  .       .       .131 

VII.  The  Development  of  Attention  .       .       .141 

VIII.  The  Aim  of  History  in  Elementar's  Edu- 
cation          155 


o 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING    PAGE 

Drawing  of  a  Cave  and  Trees        ....  40 

Drawing  of  a  Forest 42 

Drawing  of  Hands  Spinning 44 

Drawing  of  a  Girl  Spinning 46 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

The  first  three  chapters  of  this  book  were  de- 
delivered  as  lectures  before  an  audience  of  parents 
and  others  interested  in  the  University  Elementary 
School,  in  the  month  of  April  of  the  year  1899. 
Mr.  Dewey  revised  them  in  part  from  a  steno- 
graphic report,  and  unimportant  changes  and  the 
slight  adaptations  necessary  for  the  press  have  been 
made  in  his  absence.  The  lectures  retain  therefore 
the  unstudied  character  as  well  as  the  power  of  the 
spoken  word.  As  they  imply  more  or  less  familiar- 
ity with  the  work  of  the  Elementary  School,  Mr. 
Dewey's  supplementary  statement  of  this  has  been 
added. 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

A  second  printing  affords  a  grateful  opportunity 
for  recalling  that  this  little  book  is  a  sign  of  the 
co-operating  thoughts  and  sympathies  of  many 
persons.  Its  indebtedness  to  Mrs.  Emmons 
Blaine  is  partly  indicated  in  the  dedication. 
From  my  friends  Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Herbert 
Mead  came  that  interest,  unflagging  attention  to 
detail,  and  artistic  taste  which,  in  my  absence, 
remade  colloquial  remarks  until  they  were  fit  to 
print,  and  then  saw  the  results  through  the  press 
with  the  present  attractive  result — a  mode  of 
authorship  made  easy,  which  I  recommend  to 
others  fortunate  enough  to  possess  such  friends. 

It  wouid  be  an  extended  paragraph  which 
should  list  all  the  friends  whose  timely  and  per- 
sisting generosity  has  made  possible  the  school 
which  inspired  and  defined  the  ideas  of  these 
pages.  These  friends,  I  am  sure,  would  be  the 
first  to  recognize  the  peculiar  appropriateness  of 
especial  mention  of  the  names  of  Mrs.  Charles  R. 
Crane  and  Mrs.  William  R.  Linn. 

And  the  school  itself  in  its  educational  work  is 
a  joint  undertaking.  Many  have  engaged  in 
shaping  it.  The  clear  and  experienced  intelli- 
gence of  my  wife  is  wrought  everywhere  into  its 


jriv  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

texture.  The  wisdom,  tact,  and  devotion  of  its 
instructors  have  brought  about  a  transformation 
of  its  original  amorphous  plans  into  articulate 
form  and  substance  with  life  and  movement  of 
their  own.  Whatever  the  issue  of  the  ideas  pre- 
sented in  this  book,  the  satisfaction  coming  from 
the  co-operation  of  the  diverse  thoughts  and  deeds 
of  many  persons  in  undertaking  to  enlarge  the 
life  of  the  child  will  abide. 


.f^ 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE  TO  SECOND  EDITION 

The  present  edition  includes  some  slight  verbal 
revisions  of  the  three  lectures  constituting  the  first 
portion  of  the  book.  The  latter  portion  is  included 
for  the  first  time,  containing  material  borrowed, 
with  some  changes,  from  the  author's  contributions 
to  the  Elementary  School  Record,  long  out  of  print. 

The  writer  may  perhaps  be  permitted  a  word  to 
express  his  satisfaction  that  the  educational  point 
of  view  presented  in  this  book  is  not  so  novel  as 
it  was  fifteen  years  ago;  and  his  desire  to  beUeve 
that  the  educational  experiment  of  which  the  book 
is  an  outgrowth  has  not  been  without  influence 
in  the  change. 

J.  D. 

New  York  City 
July,  iQis 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS 

We  are  apt  to  look  at  the  school  from  an  mdividu- 
alistic  standpoint,  as  something  between  teacher 
and  pupil,  or  between  teacher  and  parent.  That 
which  interests  us  most  is  naturally  the  progress 
made  by  the  individual  child  of  our  acquaintance, 
his  normal  physical  development,  his  advance  in 
abihty  to  read,  write,  and  figure,  his  growth  in 
the  knowledge  of  geography  and  history,  im- 
provement in  manners,  habits  of  promptness, 
order,  and  industry— it  is  from  such  standards  as 
these  that  we  judge  the  work  of  the  school.  And 
rightly  so.  Yet  the  range  of  the  outlook  needs 
to  be  enlarged.  What  the  best  and  wisest  parent 
wants  for  his  own  child,  that  must  the  community 
want  for  all  of  its  children.  Any  other  ideal  for 
our  schools  is  narrow  and  unlovely;  acted  upon, 
it  destroys  our  democracy.  All  that  society  has 
accomphshed  for  itself  is  put,  through  the  agency 
of  the  school,  at  the  disposal  of  its  future  mem- 
bers. All  its  better  thoughts  of  itself  it  hopes  to 
realize  through  the  new  possibilities  thus  opened 
to  its  future  self.  Here  individualism  and  social- 
ism are  at  one.  Only  by  being  true  to  the  full 
growth  of  all  the  individuals  who  make  it  up,  can 
3 


4  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

society  by  any  chance  be  true  to  itself.  And  in 
the  self -direction  thus  given,  nothing  counts  as 
much  as  the  school,  for,  as  Horace  Mann  said, 
"Where  anything  is  growing,  one  former  is  worth 
a  thousand  re-formers." 

^^I^henever  we  have  in  mind  the  discussion  of 
a  new  movement  in  education,  it  is  especially 
necessary  to  take  the  broader,  or  social,  view. 
Othen^ase,  changes  in  the  school  institution  and 
tradition  will  be  looked  at  as  the  arbitrary  inven- 
tions of  particular  teachers,  at  the  worst  transi- 
tory fads,  and  at  the  best  merely  improvements 
in  certain  details — and  this  is  the  plane  upon  which 
it  is  too  customary  to  consider  school  changes. 
It  is  as  rational  to  conceive  of  the  locomotive  or 
the  telegraph  as  personal  devices.  The  modifica- 
tion going  on  in  the  method  and  curriculum  of 
education  is  as  much  a  product  of  the  chan'^ed 
social  situation,  and  as  much  an  effort  to  meet 
the  needs  of  the  new  society  that  is  forming,  as 
are  changes  in  modes  of  industry  and  commerce. 
It  is  to  this,  then,  that  I  especially  ask  your 
attention:  the  effort  to  conceive  what  roughly 
may  be  termed  the  "New  Education"  in  the  light 
of  larger  changes  m  society.  Can  we  connect  this 
"New  Education"  with  the  general  march  of 
events?  If  we  can,  it  will  lose  its  isolated  char- 
acter; it  will  cease  to  be  an  affair  which  proceeds 
only  from  the  over-ingenious  minds  of  pedagogues 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  5 

dealing  with  particular  pupils.  It  will  appear 
as  part  and  parcel  of  the  whole  social  evolution, 
and,  in  its  more  general  features  at  least,  as  in- 
evitable. Let  us  then  ask  after  the  main  aspects 
of  the  social  movement;  and  afterward  turn  to 
the  school  to  find  what  witness  it  gives  of  effort 
to  put  itself  in  line.  And  since  it  is  quite  impos- 
sible to  cover  the  whole  ground,  I  shall  for  the 
most  part  confine  myself  to  one  typical  thing  in 
the  modern  school  movement — that  which  passes 
under  the  name  of  manual  training — hoping  if  the 
relation  of  that  to  changed  social  conditions  ap- 
pears, we  shall  be  ready  to  concede  the  point  as 
well  regarding  other  educational  innovations. 

I  make  no  apology  for  not  dwelling  at  length 
upon  the  social  changes  in  question.  Those  I  shall 
mention  are  writ  so  large  that  he  who  runs  may 
read.  The  change  that  comes  first  to  mind,  the 
one  that  overshadows  and  even  controls  all  others, 
is  the  industrial  one — the  application  of  science 
resulting  in  the  great  inventions  that  have  utilized 
the  forces  of  nature  on  a  vast  and  inexpensive  scale : 
the  growth  of  a  world-wide  market  as  the  object 
of  production,  of  vast  manufacturing  centers  to 
supply  this  market,  of  cheap  and  rapid  means  of 
communication  and  distribution  between  all  its 
parts.  Even  as  to  its  feebler  beginnings,  this 
change  is  not  much  more  than  a  century  old;  in 
many  of  its  most  important  aspects  it  falls  within 


6  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

the  short  span  of  those  now  li\ang.  One  can 
hardly  believe  there  has  been  a  revolution  in 
all  history  so  rapid,  so  extensive,  so  complete. 
Through  it  the  face  of  the  earth  is  making  over, 
even  as  to  its  physical  forms;  political  boundaries 
are  wiped  out  and  moved  about,  as  if  they  were 
indeed  only  lines  on  a  paper  map;  population  is 
hurriedly  gathered  into  cities  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth;  habits  of  living  are  altered  with  startling 
abruptness  and  thoroughness;  the  search  for  the 
truths  of  nature  is  infinitely  stimulated  and  facili- 
tated, and  their  application  to  life  made  not  only 
practicable,  but  commercially  necessary.  Even 
our  moral  and  religious  ideas  and  interests,  the 
most  conservative  because  the  deepest-l>'ing  things 
in  our  nature,  are  profoundly  affected.  That  this 
revolution  should  not  affect  education  in  some  other 
than  a  formal  and  superficial  fashion  is  incofi- 
ceivable. 

Back  of  the  factory  system  lies  the  household 
and  neighborhood  system.  Those  of  us  who  are 
here  today  need  go  back  only  one,  two,  or  at  most 
three  generations,  to  find  a  time  when  the  house- 
hold was  practically  the  center  in  which  were 
carried  on,  or  about  which  were  clustered,  all  the 
t>'pical  forms  of  industrial  occupation.  The  cloth- 
ing worn  v;as  for  the  most  part  made  in  the  house; 
the  members  of  the  household  were  usually  familiar 
also  with  the  shearing  of  the  sheep,  the  carding  and 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  7 

spinnmg  of  the  wool,  and  the  plying  of  the  loom. 
Instead  of  pressing  a  button  and  flooding  the  house 
with  electric  light,  the  whole  process  of  getting 
illumination  was  foUowed  in  its  toilsome  length 
from  the  killing  of  the  animal  and  the  trying  of 
fat  to  the  making  of  wicks  and  dipping  of  candles. 
The  supply  of  flour,  of  lumber,  of  foods,  of  building 
materials,  of  household  furniture,  even  of  metal 
ware,  of  nails,  hinges,  hammers,  etc.,  was  produced 
in  the  immediate  neighborhood,  in  shops  which 
were  constantly  open  to  inspection  and  often 
centers  of  neighborhood  congregation.  The  entire 
industrial  process  stood  revealed,  from  the  produc- 
tion on  the  farm  of  the  raw  materials  till  the 
finished  article  was  actually  put  to  use.  Not  only 
this,  but  practically  every  member  of  the  house- 
hold had  his  own  share  in  the  work.  The  children, 
as  they  gained  in  strength  and  capacity,  were 
gradually  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  the  several 
processes.  It  was  a  matter  of  immediate  and 
personal  concern,  even  to  the  point  of  actual 
participation. 

We  cannot  overlook  the  factors  of  discipline 
and  of  character-building  involved  in  this  kind  of 
life:  training  in  habits  of  order  and  of  industry, 
and  in  the  idea  of  responsibility,,  of  obligation  to  do 
something,  to  produce  something,  in  the  world. 
There  was  always  something  which  really  needed 
to  be  done,  and  a  real  necessity  that  each  member 


8  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

of  the  household  should  do  his  own  part  faithfully 
and  in  co-operation  with  others.  Personalities 
which  became  eflFcctive  in  action  were  bred  and 
tested  in  the  medium  of  action.  Again,  we  cannot 
overlook  the  importance  for  educational  purposes 
of  the  close  and  intimate  acquaintance  got  with 
nature  at  first  hand,  with  real  things  and  materials, 
with  the  actual  processes  of  their  manipulation, 
and  the  knowledge  of  their  social  necessities  and 
uses.  ^liTall  this  there  was  continual  trainmg  of 
observation,  of  ingenuity,  constructive  imagina- 
tion, of  logical  thought,  and  of  the  sense  of  reality 
acquired  through  first-hand  contact  with  actual- 
ities. The  educative  forces  of  the  domestic  spin- 
ning and  weaving,  of  the  sawmill,  the  gristmill, 
the  cooper  shop,  and  the  blacksmith  forge,  were 
continuously  operative. 

No  number  of  object-lessons,  got  up  as  object- 
lessons  for  the  sake  of  giving  information,  can 
afford  even  the  shadow  of  a  substitute  for  acquaint- 
ance with  the  plants  and  animals  of  the  farm  and 
garden  acquired  through  actual  living  among  them 
and  caring  for  them.  No  training  of  sense-organs 
in  school,  introduced  for  the  sake  of  training,  can 
begin  to  compete  with  the  alertness  and  fulness 
of  sense-life  that  comes  through  daily  intimacy  and 
interest  in  familiar  occupations.  Verbal  memory 
can  be  trained  in  committing  tasks,  a  certam  dis- 
cipline of  the  reasoning  powers  can  be  acquired 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  9 

through  lessons  in  science  and  mathematics;  but, 
after  all,  this  is  somewhat  remote  and  shadowy 
compared  with  the  training  of  attention  and  of 
judgment  that  is  acquired  in  having  to  do  things 
with  a  real  motive  behind  and  a  real  outcome  ahead. 
At  present,  concentration  of  industry  and  division 
of  labor  have  practically  eliminated  household  and 
neighborhood  occupations — at  least  for  educa- 
tional purposes.  But  it  is  useless  to  bemoan  the 
departure  of  the  good  old  days  of  children's  mod- 
esty, reverence,  and  implicit  obedience,  if  we  expect 
merely  by  bemoaning  and  by  exhortation  to  bring 
them  back.  It  is  radical  conditions  which  have 
changed,  and  only  an  equally  radical  change  in 
education  suffices.  We  must  recognize  our  com- 
pensations—the increase  in  toleration,  in  breadth 
of  social  judgment,  the  larger  acquaintance  with 
human  nature,  the  sharpened  alertness  in  reading 
signs  of  character  and  interpreting  social  situations, 
greater  accuracy  of  adaptation  to  differing  per- 
sonalities, contact  with  greater  commercial  activ- 
ities. These  considerations  mean  much  to  the 
city-bred  child  of  today.  Yet  there  is  a  real 
problem:  how  shall  we  retain  these  advantages, 
and  yet  introduce  into  the  school  something 
representing  the  other  side  of  life— occupations 
which  exact  personal  responsibilities  and  which 
train  the  child  in  relation  to  the  physical  realities 
of  life? 


to  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

When  we  turn  to  the  school,  we  find  that  one 
of  the  most  striking  tendencies  at  present  is  toward 
the  introduction  of  so-called  manual  training, 
shop  work,  and  the  household  arts — sewing  and 
cooking. 

This  has  not  been  done  "on  purpose,"  with  a 
full  consciousness  that  the  school  must  now  supply 
that  factor  of  training  formerly  taken  care  of  in 
the  home,  but  rather  by  instinct,  by  experiment- 
ing and  finding  that  such  work  takes  a  vital  hold 
of  pupils  and  gives  them  something  which  was  not 
to  be  got  in  any  other  way.  Consciousness  of  its 
real  import  is  still  so  weak  that  the  work  is  often 
done  in  a  half-hearted,  confused,  and  unrelated 
way.  The  reasons  assigned  to  justify  it  are  pain- 
fully inadequate  or  sometimes  even  positisely 
wrong. 

If  we  were  to  cross-examine  even  those  who  are 
most  favorably  disposed  to  the  introduction  of 
this  work  into  our  school  system,  we  should,  I 
imagine,  generally  find  the  main  reasoTis  to  be  that 
such  work  engages  the  full  spontaneous  interest 
and  attention  of  the  children.  It  keeps  them 
alert  and  active,  instead  of  passive  and  receptive; 
it  makes  them  more  useful,  more  capable,  and 
hence  more  inclined  to  be  helpful  at  home;  it 
prepares  them  to  some  extent  for  the  practical 
duties  of  later  life — the  girls  to  be  more  eflScient 
house  managers,  if  not  actually  cooks  and  scam- 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  11 

stresses;  the  boys  (were  our  educational  system 
only  adequately  rounded  out  into  trade  schools) 
for  their  future  vocations.  I  do  not  underesti- 
mate the  worth  of  these  reasons.  Of  those  indi- 
cated by  the  changed  attitude  of  the  children  I  shall 
indeed  have  something  to  say  in  my  next  talk, 
when  speaking  directly  of  the  relationship  of  the 
school  to  the  child.  But  the  point  of  view  is, 
upon  the  whole,  unnecessarily  narrow.  We  must 
conceive  of  work  in  wood  and  metal,  of  weaving, 
sewing,  and  cooking,  as  methods  of  living  and 
learning,  not  as  distinct  studies. 

(We  must  conceive  of  them  in  their  social  signifi- 
cance, as  types  of  the  processes  by  which  society 
keeps  itself  going,  as  agencies  for  bringing  home  to 
the  child  some  of  the  primal  necessities  of  com- 
munity life,  and  as  ways  in  which  these  needs  have 
been  met  by  the  growing  insight  and  ingenuity  of 
man;  in  short,  as  instrumentalities  through  which 
the  school  itself  shall  be  made  a  genuine  form  of 
active  community  life,  instead  of  a  place  set  apart 
in  which  to  learn  lessons. 

■__A  society  is  a  number  of  people  held  together 
because  they  are  working  along  common  lines,  in 
a  common  spirit,  and  with  reference  to  common 
aims.  The  common  needs  and  aims  demand  a 
growing  interchange  of  thought  and  growing  unity 
of  sympathetic  feeling.  The  radical  reason  that 
the   present   school    cannot   organize   itself   as   a 


1 2  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

natural  social  unit  is  because  just  this  element  of 
common  and  productive  activity  is  absent.  Upon 
the  playground,  in  game  and  sport,  social  organiza- 
tion takes  place  spontaneously  and  inevitably. 
There  is  something  to  do,  some  activity  to  be 
carried  on,  requiring  natural  divisions  of  labor, 
selection  of  leaders  and  followers,  mutual  co- 
operation and  emulation.  In  the  schoolroom  the 
motive  and  the  cement  of  social  organization  are 
alike  wanting.  Upon  the  ethical  side,  the  tragic 
weakness  of  the  present  school  is  that  it  endeavors 
to  prepare  future  members  of  the  social  order  in  a 
medium  in  which  the  conditions  of  the  social  spirit 
are  eminently  wanting. 

The  difference  that  appears  when  occupations 
are  made  the  articulating  centers  of  school  life  is 
not  easy  to  describe  in  words;  it  is  a  difference 
in  motive,  of  spirit  and  atmosphere.  As  one  enters 
a  busy  kitchen  in  which  a  group  of  children  are 
actively  engaged  in  the  preparation  of  food,  the 
psychological  difference,  the  change  from  more  or 
less  passive  and  inert  recipiency  and  restraint  to 
one  of  buoyant  outgoing  energy,  is  so  obvious  as 
fairly  to  strike  one  in  the  face.  Indeed,  to  those 
whose  image  of  the  school  is  rigidly  set  the  change 
is  sure  to  give  a  shock.  But  the  change  in  the 
social  attitude  is  equally  marked.  The  mere 
absorbing  of  facts  and  truths  is  so  exclusively  indi- 
vidual an  affair  that  it  tends  very  naturally  to 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  13 

pass  into  selfishness.  There  is  no  obvious  social 
motive  for  the  acquirement  of  mere  learning,  there 
is  no  clear  social  gain  in  success  thereat.  Indeed, 
almost  the  only  measure  for  success  is  a  competitive 
one,  in  the  bad  sense  of  that  term — a  comparison 
of  results  in  the  recitation  or  in  the  examination  to 
see  vrhich  child  has  succeeded  in  getting  ahead  of 
others  in  storing  up,  in  accumulating,  the  maximum 
of  information.  So  thoroughly  is  this  the  prevail- 
ing atmosphere  that  for  one  child  to  help  another 
in  his  task  has  become  a  school  crime.  Where  the 
school  work  consists  in  simply  learning  lessons, 
mutual  assistance,  instead  of  being  the  most 
natural  form  of  co-operation  and  association,  be- 
comes a  clandestine  effort  to  relieve  one's  neighbor 
of  his  proper  duties.  Where  active  work  is  going 
on,  all  this  is  changed.  Helping  others,  instead  of 
being  a  form  of  charity  which  impoverishes  the 
recipient,  is  simply  an  aid  in  setting  free  the  powers 
and  furthering  the  impulse  of  the  one  helped.  A 
spirit  of  free  communication,  of  interchange  of 
ideas,  suggestions,  results,  both  successes  and 
failures  of  previous  experiences,  becomes  the 
dominating  note  of  the  recitation.  So  far  as  emula- 
tion enters  in,  it  is  in  the  comparison  of  individuals, 
not  with  regard  to  the  quantity  of  information 
personally  absorbed,  but  with  reference  to  the 
quality  of  work  done — the  genuine  community 
standard  of   value.     In   an   informal  but  all   the 


14  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

more  pervasive  way,  the  school  life  organzies  itself 
on  a  social  basis. 

Within  this  organization  is  found  the  principle 
of  school  discipline  or  order.  Of  course,  order  is 
simply  a  thing  which  is  relative  to  an  end.  If  you 
have  the  end  in  view  of  forty  or  fifty  children  learn- 
ing certain  set  lessons,  to  be  recited  to  a  teacher, 
your  discipline  must  be  devoted  to  securing  that 
result.  But  if  the  end  in  view  is  the  development 
of  a  spirit  of  social  co-operation  and  community 
life,  discipline  must  grow  out  of  and  be  relative 
to  such  an  aim.  There  is  little  of  one  sort  of  order 
where  things  are  in  process  of  construction;  there 
is  a  certain  disorder  in  any  busy  workshop;  there 
is  not  silence;  persons  are  not  engaged  in  maintain- 
ing certain  fixed  physical  postures;  their  arms  are 
not  folded;  they  are  not  holding  their  books  thu§ 
and  so.  They  are  doing  a  variety  of  things,  and 
there  is  the  confusion",  the  bustle,  that  results  from 
activity.  '  But  out  of  the  occupation,  out  of  doing 
things  that  are  to  produce  results,  and  out  of  doing 
these  in  a  social  and  co-operative  way,  there  is 
bom  a  discipline  of  its  own  kind  and  type.  Our 
whole  conception  of  school  discipline  changes  when 
we  get  this  point  of  view.  In  critical  moments 
we  all  realize  that  the  only  discipline  that  stands 
by  us,  the  only  training  that  becomes  intuition, 
is  that  got  through  life  itself.  Tha<  we  learn  from 
experience,  and  from  books  or  the  sayings  of  others 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  1 5 

only  as  they  are  related  to  experience,  are  not  mere 
phrases.  But  the  school  has  been  so  set  apart,  so 
isolated  from  the  ordinary  conditions  and  motives 
of  life,  that  the  place  where  children  are  sent  for 
discipline  is  the  one  place  in  the  world  where  it  is 
■  most  difficult  to  get  experience — the  mother  of  all 
discipline  worth  the  name.  It  is  only  when  a  nar- 
row and  fixed  image  of  traditional  school  discipline 
dominates  that  one  is  in  any  danger  of  overlooking 
that  deeper  and  infinitely  wider  discipline  that 
comes  from  having  a  part  to  do  in  constructive 
work,  in  contributing  to  a  result  which,  social  in 
spirit,  is  none  the  less  obvious  and  tangible  in 
form — and  hence  in  a  form  with  reference  to  which 
responsibility  may  be  exacted  and  accurate  judg- 
ment passed. 

The  great  thing  to  keep  in  mind,  then,  regard- 
ing the  introduction  into   the  school  of  various 
forms  of  active  occupation,  is  that  through  them 
the  entire  spirit  of  the  school  is  renew^ed.     It  has 
a  chance  to  affiHate  itself  with  life,  to  become  the 
child's  habitat,  where  he  learns  through  directed 
living,  instead  of  being  only  a  place  to  learn  lessons    A, 
/  having  an  abstract  and  remote  reference  to  some    J 
/  possible  living  to  be  done  in  the  future.     It  gets  a  ( 
S  chance  to  be  a  miniature  community,  an  embryonic    ) 
society.     This  is  the  fundamental  fact,  and  from  / 
this  arise  continuotis  and  orderly  streams  of  instruc- 
tion.    Under  the  industrial  regime  described,  the 


i6  TBE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

child,  after  all,  shared  in  the  work,  not  for  the  sake 
of  the  sharing,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  product. 
The  educational  results  secured  were  real,  yet  inci- 
dental and  dependent.  But  in  the  school  the  typi- 
cal occupations  followed  are  freed  from  all  economic 
stress.  The  aim  is  not  the  economic  value  of  the 
products,  but  the  development  of  social  power  and 
insight.  It  is  this  liberation  from  narrow  utilities, 
this  openness  to  the  possibilities  of  the  human 
spirit,  that  makes  these  practical  activities  in  the 
school  allies  of  art  and  centers  of  science  and 
history. 

The  unity  of  all  the  sciences  is  found  in  geog- 
raphy. The  significance  of  geography  is  that  it 
presents  the  earth  as  the  enduring  home  of  the 
occupations  of  man.  The  world  without  its  rela- 
tionship to  human  activity  is  less  than  a  wcvrld. 
Human  industry  and  achievement,  apart  from  their 
roots  in  the  earth,  are  not  even  a  sentiment,  hardly 
a  name.  The  earth  is  the  final  source  of  all  man's 
food.  It  is  his  continual  shelter  and  protection, 
the  raw  material  of  all  his  activities,  and  the  home 
to  whose  humanizing  and  idealizing  all  his  achieve- 
ment returns.  It  is  the  great  field,  the  great  mine, 
the  great  source  of  the  energies  of  heat,  light,  and 
electricity;  the  great  scene  of  ocean,  stream, 
mountain,  and  plain,  of  which  all  our  agriculture 
and  mining  and  lumbering,  all  our  manufacturing 
and    distributing    agencies,    are    but    the    partial 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  1 7 

elements  and  factors.  It  is  through  occupations 
determined  by  this  environment  that  mankind  has 
made  its  historical  and  political  progress.  It  is 
through  these  occupations  that  the  intellectual 
and  emotional  interpretation  of  nature  has  been 
developed.  It  is  through  what  we  do  m  and  with 
the  world  that  we  read  its  meaning  and  measure 
its  value. 

In  educational  terms,  this  means  that  these 
occupations  in  the  school  shall  not  be  mere  prac- 
tical devices  or  modes  of  routine  employment,  the 
gaining  of  better  technical  skill  as  cooks,  seam- 
stresses, or  carpenters,  but  active  centers  of  scien- 
tific insight  into  natural  materials  and  processes, 
points  of  departure  whence  children  shall  be  led 
out  into  a  realization  of  the  historic  development 
of  mam  The  actual  significance  of  this  can  be  told 
better  through  one  illustration  taken  from  actual 
school  work  than  by  general  discourse. 

There  is  nothing  which  strikes  more  oddly  upon 
the  average  intelligent  visitor  than  to  see  boys  as 
well  as  girls  of  ten,  twelve,  and  thirteen  years  of 
age  engaged  in  sewing  and  weaving.  If  we  look 
at  this  from  the  standpoint  of  preparation  of  the 
boys  for  sewing  on  buttons  and  making  patches, 
we  get  a  narrow  and  utilitarian  conception — a 
basis  that  hardly  justifies  giving  prominence  to 
this  sort  of  work  in  the  school.  But  if  we  look 
at  it  from  another  side,  we  find  that  this  work 


1 8  TUE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

gives  the  point  of  departure  from  which  the  child 
can  trace  and  follow  the  progress  of  mankind  in 
history,  getting  an  insight  also  into  the  materials 
used  and  the  mechanical  principles  involved.  In 
connection  vv-ith  these  occupations  the  historic  de- 
velopment of  man  is  recapitulated.  For  example, 
the  children  are  first  given  the  raw  material — 
the  flax,  the  cotton  plant,  the  wool  as  it  comes  from 
the  back  of  the  sheep  (if  we  could  take  them  to  the 
place  where  the  sheep  are  sheared,  so  much  the 
better).  Then  a  study  is  made  of  these  materials 
from  the  standpoint  of  their  adaptation  to  the  uses 
to  which  they  may  be  put.  For  instance,  a  com- 
parison of  the  cotton  fiber  with  wool  fiber  is  made. 
I  did  not  know,  until  the  children  told  me,  that  the 
reason  for  the  late  development  of  the  cotton  indus- 
try as  compared  with  the  woolen  is  that  the  cottbn 
fiber  is  so  very  difficult  to  free  by  hand  from  the 
seeds.  The  children  in  one  group  worked  thirty 
minutes  freeing  cotton  fibers  from  the  boll  and 
seeds,  and  succeeded  in  getting  out  less  than  one 
ounce.  They  could  easily  believe  that  one  person 
could  gin  only  one  pound  a  day  by  hand,  and  could 
understand  why  their  ancestors  wore  woolen 
instead  of  cotton  clothing.  Among  other  things 
discovered  as  affecting  their  relative  utilities  was 
the  shortness  of  the  cotton  fiber  as  compared  with 
that  of  wool,  the  former  averaging,  say,  one-third 
of  an  inch  in  length,  while  the  latter  run  to  three 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  19 

inches  in  length;  also  that  the  fibers  of  cotton  are 
smooth  and  do  not  cling  together,  while  the  wool 
has  a  certain  roughness  which  makes  the  fibers 
stick,  thus  assisting  the  spinning.  The  children 
worked  this  out  for  themselves  with  the  actual 
material,  aided  by  questions  and  suggestions  from 
the  teacher. 

They  then  followed  the  processes  necessary  for 
working  the  fibers  up  into  cloth.  They  reinvented 
the  first  frame  for  carding  the  wool — a  couple  of 
boards  with  sharp  pins  in  them  for  scratching  it 
out.  They  redevised  the  simplest  process  for 
spinning  the  wool — a  pierced  stone  or  some  other 
weight  through  which  the  wool  is  passed,  and  which 
as  it  is  twirled  draws  out  the  fiber;  next  the  top, 
which  was  spun  on  the  floor,  while  the  children 
kept  the  wool  in  their  hands  until  it  was  gradually 
drawn  out  and  wound  upon  it.  Then  the  children 
are  introduced  to  the  invention  next  in  historic 
order,  working  it  out  experimentally,  thus  seeing 
its  necessity,  and  tracing  its  effects,  not  only  upon 
that  particular  industry,  but  upon  modes  of  social 
life — in  this  way  passing  in  review  the  entire  process 
up  to  the  present  complete  loom,  and  all  that  goes 
with  the  application  of  science  in  the  use  of  our 
present  available  powers.  I  need  not  speak  of  the 
science  involved  in  this — the  study  of  the  fibers, 
of  geographical  features,  the  conditions  under 
which  raw  materials  are  grown,  the  great  centers  of 


20  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

manufacture  and  distribution,  the  physics  involved 
in  the  machinery  of  production;  nor,  again,  of  the 
historical  side — the  influence  which  these  inven- 
tions have  had  upon  humanity.  You  can  concen- 
trate the  history  of  all  mankind  into  the  evolution 
of  the  flax,  cotton,  and  wool  fibers  into  clothing. 
I  do  not  mean  that  this  is  the  only,  or  the  best, 
center.  But  it  is  true  that  certain  very  real 
and  important  avenues  to  the  consideration  of  the 
history  of  the  race  are  thus  opened — that  the  mind 
is  introduced  to  much  more  fundamental  and 
controlling  influences  than  appear  in  the  political 
and  chronological  records  that  usually  pass  for 
history. 

Now,  what  is  true  of  this  one  instance  oi  fibers 
used  in  fabrics  (and,  of  course,  I  have  only  spoken 
of  one  or  two  elementary  phases  of  that)  is  triie 
in  its  measure  of  every  material  used  in  ever}'  occu- 
pation, and  of  the  processes  employed.  The  occu- 
pation supplies  the  child  with  a  genuine  motive; 
it  gives  him  experience  at  first  hand ;  it  brings  him 
into  contact  with  realities.  It  does  all  this,  but 
in  addition  it  is  liberalized  throughout  by  transla- 
tion into  its  historic  and  social  values  and  scien- 
tific equivalencies.  With  the  growth  of  the  cliild's 
mind  in  power  and  knowledge  it  ceases  to  be  a 
pleasant  occupation  merely  and  becomes  more  and 
more  a  medium,  an  instrument,  an  organ  of  under- 
standing— and  is  thereby  transft)mied. 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  21 

This,  in  turn,  has  its  bearing  upon  the  teaching 
of  science.  Under  present  conditions,  all  activity, 
to  be  successful,  has  to  be  directed  somewhere 
and  somehow  by  the  scientific  expert — it  is  a  case 
of  applied  science.  This  connection  should  deter- 
mine its  place  in  education.  It  is  not  only  that 
the  occupations,  the  so-called  manual  or  industrial 
work  in  the  school,  give  the  opportunity  for  the 
introduction  of  science  which  illuminates  them, 
which  makes  them  material,  freighted  with  mean- 
ing, instead  of  b*  ig  mere  devices  of  hand  and  eye; 
but  that  the  scj^f^tific  insight  thus  gained  becomes 
an  indispensable  instrument  of  free  and  active 
participation  i"i  modem  social  life.  Plato  some- 
where speaks  of  the  slave  as  one  who  in  his  actions 
does  not  express  his  own  ideas,  but  those  of  some 
other  man.  It  is  our  social  problem  now,  even 
more  urgent  than  in  the  time  of  Plato,  that  method, 
purpose,  understanding,  shall  exist  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  one  who  does  the  work,  that  his 
activity  shall  have  meaning  to  himself. 

When  occupations  in  the  school  are  conceived 
in  this  broad  and  generous  way,  I  can  only  stand 
lost  in  wonder  at  the  objections  so  often  heard, 
that  such  occupations  are  out  of  place  in  the  school 
because  they  are  materiahstic,  utiHtarian,  or  even 
menial  in  their  tendency.  It  sometimes  seems  to 
me  that  those  who  make  these  objections  must 
hve  in  quite  another  world.     The  world  in  which 


,^\yl 


2  2  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

most  of  US  live  is  a  world  in  which  everyone  has  a 
calling  and  occupation,  something  to  do.  Some 
are  managers  and  others  are  subordinates.  But 
the  great  thing  for  one  as  for  the  other  is  that  each 
shall  have  had  the  education  which  enables  him 
to  see  within  his  daily  work  all  there  is  in  it  of  large 
and  human  significance.  How  many  of  the  em- 
ployed are  today  mere  appendages  to  the  machines 
which  they  operate!  This  may  be  due  in  part  to 
the  machine  itself  or  the  regime  which  lays  so 
much  stress  upon  the  products  of  the  machine; 
but  it  is  certainly  due  in  large  part  to  the  fact  that 
the  worker  has  had  no  opportunity  to  develop 
his  imagination  and  his  sympathetic  insight  as 
to  the  social  and  scientific  values  found  m  his  work. 
At  present,  the  impulses  which  lie  at  the  basis  of 
the  industrial  system  are  either  practically  npg- 
lected  or  positively  distorted  during  the  school 
period.  Until  the  instincts  of  construction  and 
production  are  systematically  laid  hold  of  in  the 
years  of  childhood  and  youth,  until  they  are  trained 
in  social  directions,  enriched  by  historical  inter- 
pretation, controlled  and  illummated  by  scientific 
methods,  we  certainly  are  in  no  position  even  to 
locate  the  source  of  our  economic  evils,  much  less 
to  deal  with  them  effectively. 

If  we  go  back  a  few  centuries,  we  find  a  practical 
monopoly  of  learning.  The  tenn  possession  of 
learning  is,  indeed,  a  happy  one.     Learning  was 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  23 

a  class  matter.  This  was  a  necessary  result  of 
social  conditions.  There  were  not  in  existence 
any  means  by  which  the  multitude  could  possibly 
have  access  to  intellectual  resources.  These  were 
stored  up  and  hidden  away  in  manuscripts.  Of 
these  there  were  at  best  only  a  few,  and  it  required 
long  and  toilsome  preparation  to  be  able  to  do 
anything  with  them.  A  high-priesthood  of  learn- 
ing, which  guarded  the  treasury  of  truth  and  which 
doled  it  out  to  the  masses  under  severe  restrictions, 
was  the  inevitable  expression  of  these  conditions. 
But,  as  a  direct  result  of  the  industrial  revolution 
of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  this  has  been 
changed.  Printing  was  invented;  it  was  made 
commercial.  Books,  magazines,  papers  were  mul- 
tiplied and  cheapened.  As  a  result  of  the  loco- 
motive and  telegraph,  frequent,  rapid,  and  cheap 
intercommunication  by  mails  and  electricity  was 
called  into  being.  Travel  has  been  rendered  easy; 
freedom  of  movement,  with  its  accompanying  ex- 
change of  ideas,  indefinitely  facilitated.  The  result 
has  been  an  intellectual  revolution.  Learning  has 
been  put  into  circulation.  While  there  still  is,  and 
probably  always  will  be,  a  particular  class  having 
the  special  business  of  inquiry  in  hand,  a  distinc- 
tively learned  class  is  henceforth  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. It  is  an  anachronism.  Knowledge  is  no  longer 
an  immobile  sohd;  it  has  been  liquefied.  It  is 
actively  moving  in  all  the  currents  of  society  itself. 


24  TEE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  revolution,  as  regards 
the  materials  of  knowledge,  carries  with  it  a  marked 
change  in  the  attitude  of  the  individual.  StimuU 
of  an  intellectual  sort  pour  in  upon  us  in  all  kinds 
of  ways.  The  merely  intellectual  life,  the  life  of 
scholarship  and  of  learning,  thus  gets  a  very  altered 
value.  Academic  and  scholastic,  instead  of  being 
titles  of  honor,  are  becoming  terms  of  reproach. 

But  all  this  means  a  necessary  change  m  the 
attitude  of  the  school,  one  of  which  we  are  as  yet 
far  from  realizing  the  full  force.  Our  school 
methods,  and  to  a  very  considerable  extent  our 
curriculum,  are  inherited  from  the  period  when 
learning  and  command  of  certain  symbols,  afford- 
ing as  they  did  the  only  access  to  learning,  were 
all-important.  The  ideals  of  this  period  are  still 
largely  in  control,  even  where  the  outward  methods 
and  studies  have  been  changed.  We  sometimes 
hear  the  introduction  of  manual  training,  art,  and 
science  into  the  elementary,  and  even  the  secondary, 
schools  deprecated  on  the  ground  that  they  tend 
toward  the  production  of  specialists — that  they 
detract  from  our  present  scheme  of  generous, 
liberal  culture.  The  point  of  this  objection  would 
be  ludicrous  if  it  were  not  often  so  effective  as  to 
make  it  tragic.  It  is  our  present  education  which 
is  highly  specialized,  one-sided,  and  narrow.  It 
is  an  education  dominated  almost  entirely  by  the 
mediaeval   conception    of    learning.     It   is   some- 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  25 

thing  which  appeals  for  the  most  part  simply  to  the' 
intellectual  aspect  of  our  natures,  our  desire  to 
learn,  to  accumulate  information,  and  to  get  con- 
trol of  the  symbols  of  learning;  not  to  our  impulses 
and  tendencies  to  make,  to  do,  to  create,  to  pro- 
duce, whether  in  the  form  of  utility  or  of  art.  The 
very  fact  that  manual  training,  art,  and  science 
are  objected  to  as  technical,  as  tending  toward 
mere  specialism,  is  of  itself  as  good  testimony  as 
could  be  oSered  to  the  specialized  aim  which  con- 
trols current  education.  Unless  education  had 
been  virtually  identified  with  the  exclusively  intel- 
lectual pursuits,  with  learning  as  such,  all  these 
materials  and  methods  would  be  welcome,  would 
be  greeted  with  the  utmost  hospitahty. 

While  training  for  the  profession  of  learning 
is  regarded  as  the  type  of  culture,  or  a  liberal  edu- 
cation, the  training  of  a  mechanic,  a  musician,  a 
lawyer,  a  doctor,  a  farmer,  a^  merchant,  or  a  rail- 
road manager  is  regarded  as  purely  technical  and 
professional.  The  result  is  that  which  we  see  about 
us  everywhere — the  division  into  ''cultured" 
people  and  "workers,"  the  separation  of  theory  and 
practice.  Hardly  i  per  cent  of  the  entire  school 
population  ever  attains  to  what  we  call  higher 
education ;  only  5  per  cent  to  the  grade  of  our  high 
school;  while  much  more  than  half  leave  on  or 
before  the  completion  of  the  fifth  year  of  the  ele- 
mentary grade.     The  simple  facts  of  the  case  are 


26  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

that  in  the  great  majority  of  human  beings  the 
distinctively  intellectual  interest  is  not  dominant. 
They  have  the  so-called  practical  impulse  and  de- 
position. In  many  of  those  in  whom  by  nature 
intellectual  interest  is  strong,  social  conditions 
prevent  its  adequate  realization.  Consequently 
by  far  the  larger  number  of  pupils  leave  school 
as  soon  as  they  have  acquired  the  rudiments  of 
learning,  as  soon  as  they  have  enough  of  the 
symbols  of  reading,  writing,  and  calculating  to 
be  of  practical  use  to  them  in  getting  a  living. 
While  our  educational  leaders  are  talking  of 
culture,  the  development  of  personality,  etc.,  as 
the  end  and  aim  of  education,  the  great  majority 
of  those  who  pass  under  the  tuition  of  the 
school  regard  it  only  as  a  narrowly  practical  tool 
with  which  to  get  bread  and  butter  enough  to  eke 
out  a  restricted  life.  If  we  were  to  conceive  our 
educational  end  and  aim  in  a  less  exclusive,  way, 
if  we  were  to  introduce  into  educational  processes 
thQ  activities  which  appeal  to  those  whose  domi- 
nant interest  is  to  do  and  to  make,  we  should 
find  the  hold  of  the  school  upon  its  members  to 
be  more  vital,  more  prolonged,  containing  more  of 
culture. 

But  why  should  I  make  this  labored  presenta- 
tion ?  The  obvious  fact  is  that  our  social  life  has 
undergone  a  thorough  and  radical  change.  If  our 
education  is  to  have  any  meaning  for  life,  it  must 


TEE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  27 

pass  through  an  equally  complete  transformation. 
This  transformation  is  not  something  to  appear 
suddenly,  to  be  executed  in  a  day  by  conscious 
purpose.  It  is  already  in  progress.  Those  modi- 
fications of  our  school  system  which  often  appear 
(even  to  those  most  actively  concerned  with  them, 
to  say  nothing  of  their  spectators)  to  be  mere 
changes  of  detail,  mere  improvement  within  the 
school  mechanism,  are  in  reahty  signs  and  evidences 
of  evolution.  The  introduction  of  active  occupa- 
tions, of  nature-study,  of  elementary  science,  of  art, 
of  history;  the  relegation  of  the  merely  symbolic 
and  formal  to  a  secondary  position;  the  change  in 
the  moral  school  atmosphere,  in  the  relation  of 
pupils  and  teachers — of  discipline;  the  introduc- 
tion of  more  active,  expressive,  and  self-directing 
factors — ^all  these  are  not  mere  accidents,  they  are 
necessities  of  the  larger  social  evolution.  It  re- 
mains but  to  organize  all  these  factors,  to  appre- 
ciate them  in  their  fulness  of  meaning,  and  to  put 
the  ideas  and  ideals  involved  into  complete,  uncom- 
promising possession  of  our  school  system.  \To_ 
do  this  means  to  make  each  one  of  our  schools  an  , 
embryonic  coimnunit}'-  life,  active  with  types  of 
occupations  that  reflect  the  life  of  the  larger 
society  and  permeated  throughout  with  the  spirit 
of  art,  history,  and  science.  When  the  school 
introduces  and  trains  each  child  of  society  into 
membership  within  such  a  little  community,  satu- 


28  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

I   rating  him  with  the  spirit  of  service,  and  providing 
him  with  the  instruments  of  effective  self-direction, 
\   we   shall   have    the    deepest    and    best   guaranty 
I^      1.       1  of  a  larger  society  which  is  worthy,  lovely,  and 
\'     harmonious. 


v/vKJ2>-\rt^ 


vj^ 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE 
CHH^D 


n 

THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE 
CHILD 

Last  week  I  tried  to  put  before  you  the  rela- 
tionship between  the  school  and  the  larger  life 
of  the  community,  and  the  necessity  for  certain 
changes  in  the  methods  and  materials  of  school 
work,  that  it  might  be  better  adapted  to  present 
social  needs. 

Today  I  wish  to  look  at  the  matter  from  the 
other  side  and  consider  the  relationship  of  the 
school  to  the  life  and  development  of  the  chil- 
dren in  the  school.  As  it  is  difficult  to  connect 
general  principles  with  such  thoroughly  concrete 
things  as  little  children,  I  have  taken  the  liberty 
of  introducing  a  great  deal  of  illustrative  matter 
from  the  work  of  the  University  Elementary 
School,  that  in  some  measure  you  may  appreciate 
the  way  in  which  the  ideas  presented  work  them- 
selves out  in  actual  practice. 

Some  few  years  ago  I  was  looking  about  the 
school  supply  stores  in  the  city,  trying  to  find 
desks  and  chairs  which  seemed  thoroughly  suit- 
able from  all  points  of  view — artistic,  hygienic, 
and  educational — to  the  needs  of  the  children. 
We  had  a  great  deal  of  difficulty  in  finding  what 


32  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

we  needed,  and  finally  one  dealer,  more  intelligent 
than  the  rest,  made  this  remark:  "I  am  afraid 
we  have  not  what  you  want.  You  want  some- 
thing at  which  the  children  may  work;  these  are 
all  for  listening."  That  tells  the  story  of  the  tra- 
ditional education.  Just  as  the  biologist  can  take 
a  bone  or  two  and  reconstruct  the  whole  animal, 
so,  if  we  put  before  the  mind's  eye  the  ordinary 
schoolroom,  with  its  rows  of  ugly  desks  placed  in 
geometrical  order,  crowded  together  so  that  there 
shall  be  as  Little  moving  room  as  possible,  desks 
almost  all  of  the  same  size,  with  just  space  enough 
to  hold  books,  pencils,  and  paper,  and  add  a  table, 
some  chairs,  the  bare  walls,  and  possibly  a  few  pic- 
tures, we  can  reconstruct  the  only  educational 
activity  that  can  possibly  go  on  in  such  a  place. 
It  is  all  made  "for  listening" — because  simply 
studying  lessons  out  of  a  book  is  only  another  kind 
of  listening;  it  marks  the  dependency  of  one  mind 
upon  another.  The  attitude  of  listening  means, 
comparatively  speaking,  passivity,  absorption'; 
that  there  are  certain  ready-made  materials  which 
are  there,  which  have  been  prepared  by  the  school 
superintendent,  the  board,  the  teacher,  and  of 
which  the  child  is  to  take  in  as  much  as  possible 
in  the  least  possible  time. 

There  is  very  Uttle  place  in  the  traditional 
schoolroom  for  the  child  to  work.  The  workshop, 
the  laboratory,  the  materials,  the  tools  with  which 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  UFE  OF  THE  CHILD    33 

the  child  may  construct,  create,  and  actively  in- 
quire, and  even  the  requisite  space,  have  been  for 
the  most  part  lacking.  The  things  that  have  to 
do  with  these  processes  have  not  even  a  definitely 
recognized  place  in  education.  They  are  what  the 
educational  authorities  who  write  editorials  in  the 
daily  papers  generally  term  "fads"  and  "frills." 
A  lady  told  me  yesterday  that  she  had  been 
visiting  different  schools  trying  to  find  one  where 
activity  on  the  part  of  the  children  preceded 
the  giving  of  information  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher,  or  where  the  children  had  some  motive 
for  demanding  the  information.  She  visited, 
she  said,  twenty-four  different  schools  before  she 
found  her  first  instance.  I  may  add  that  that  was 
not  in  this  city. 

Another  thing  that  is  suggested  by  these  school- 
rooms, with  their  set  desks,  is  that  everything  is 
arranged  for  handling  as  large  numbers  of  chil- 
dren as  possible;  for  dealing  with  children  en  masse, 
as  an  aggregate  of  units;  involving,  again,  that 
they  be  treated  passively.  The  moment  children 
act  they  individualize  themselves;  they  cease  to 
be  a  mass  and  become  the  intensely  distinctive 
beings  that  we  are  acquainted  with  out  of  school, 
in  the  home,  the  family,  on  the  playground,  and 
in  the  neighborhood.  "" 

On  the  same  basis  is  explicable  the  uniformity 
of  method  and  curriculum.     If  everything  is  on 


34  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

a  "listening"  basis,  you  can  have  uniformity  of 
material  and  method.  The  ear,  and  the  book 
which  reflects  the  ear,  constitute  the  medium 
which  is  alike  for  all.  There  is  next  to  no  oppor- 
tunity for  adjustment  to  var>^ing  capacities  and 
demands.  There  is  a  certain  amount — a  fijted 
quantity — of  ready-made  results  and  accomplish- 
ments to  be  acquired  by  all  children  alike  in  a 
given  time.  It  is  in  response  to  this  demand 
that  the  curriculum  has  been  developed  from  the 
elementary  school  up  through  the  college.  There 
is  just  so  much  desirable  knowledge,  and  there 
are  just  so  many  needed  technical  accomplish- 
ments in  the  world.  Then  comes  the  mathe- 
matical problem  of  dividing  this  by  the  six, 
twelve,  or  sixteen  years  of  school  life.  Now 
give  the  children  every  year  just  the  proportions 
ate  fraction  of  the  total,  and  by  the  time  they  have 
finished  they  will  have  mastered  the  whole.  By 
covering  so  much  ground  during  this  hour  or  day 
or  week  or  year,  everything  comes  out  with  per- 
fect evenness  at  the  end — provided  the  children 
have  not  forgotten  what  they  have  previously 
learned.  The  outcome  of  all  this  is  jNIatthew 
Arnold's  report  of  the  statement,  proudly  made 
to  him  by  an  educational  authority  in  France,  that 
so  many  thousands  of  children  were  studying  at  a 
given  hour,  say  eleven  o'clock,  just  such  a  lesson 
in  geography;    and   in  one  of  our  own   western 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  CHILD    35 

cities  this  proud  boast  used  to  be  repeated  to 
successive  visitors  by  its  superintendent. 

I  may  have  exaggerated  somewhat  in  order  to 
make  plain  the  typical  points  of  the  old  education : 
its  passivity  of  attitude,  its  mechanical  massing  of 
children,  its  uniformity  of  curriculum  and  method. 
It  may  be  summed  up  by  stating  that  the  center  of 
gravity  is  outside  the  child.  It  is  in  the  teacher, 
the  textbook,  anywhere  and  everywhere  you 
please  except  in  the  immediate  instincts  and  ac- 
tivities of  the  child  himself.  On  that  basis  there 
is  not  much  to  be  said  about  the  life  of  the  child. 
A  good  deal  might  be  said  about  the  studying  of 
the  child,  but  the  school  is  not  the  place  where 
the  child  lives.  Now  the  change  which  is  com- 
ing into  our  education  is  the  shifting  of  the  cen- 
ter of  gravity.  It  is  a  change,  a  revolution,  not 
unlike  that  introduced  by  Copernicus  when  the 
astronomical  center  shifted  from  the  earth  to 
the  sun.  In  this  case  the  child  becomes  the  sun 
about  which  the  appliances  of  education  revolve; 
he  is  the  center  about  which  they  are  organized. 

If  we  take  an  example  from  an  ideal  home, 
where  the  parent  is  intelligent  enough  to  recognize 
what  is  best  for  the  child,  and  is  able  to  supply 
what  is  needed,  we  fijid  the  child  learning 
through  the  social  converse  and  constitution  of 
the  family.  There  are  certain  points  of  interest 
and  value  to  him, in  the  conversation  carried  on: 


/: 


36  TEE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

statements  are  made,  inquiries  arise,  topics  are 
discussed,  and  the  child  continually  learns.  He 
states  his  experiences,  his  misconceptions  are  cor- 
rected. Again  the  child  participates  in  the  house- 
hold occupations,  and  thereby  gets  habits  of 
industry,  order,  and  regard  for  the  rights  and 
ideas  of  others,  and  the  fundamental  habit  of  sub- 

jordinating  his  activities  to  the  general  interest  of 
the  household.  Participation  in  these  household 
tasks  becomes  an  opportunity  for  gaining  knowl- 
edge. The  ideal  home  would  naturally  have  a 
workshop  where  the  child  could  work  out  his 
'constructive    instincts.     It   would   have   a    mini- 

( ature  laboratory  in  which  his  inquiries  could 
be  directed.  The  life  of  the  child  would  extend 
out  of  doors  to  the  garden,  surrounding  fields, 
and  forests.  He  would  have  his  excursions.  His 
walks  and  talks,  in  which  the  larger  world  out  of 
""  doors  would  open  to  him. 

Now,  if  we  organize  and  generalize  all  of  this, 
we  have  the  ideal  school.  There  is  no  mystery 
about  it,  no  wonderful  discovery  of  pedagogy  or 
educational  theory.  It  is  simply  a  question  of 
doing  systematically  and  in  a  large,  intelligent, 
and  competent  way  what  for  various  reasons  can 
be  done  in  most  households  only  in  a  comparatively 
meager  and  haphazard  manner.  In  the  first  place, 
the  ideal  home  has  to  be  enlarged.  The  child 
must  be  brought  into  contact  with  more  grown 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  CHILD    37 

people  and  with  more  children  in  order  that  there 
may  be  the  freest  and  richest  social  life.  More- 
over, the  occupations  and  relationships  of  the 
home  environment  are  not  specially  selected  for 
the  growth  of  the  child;  the  main  object  is  some- 
thing else,  and  what  the  child  can  get  out  of  them 
is  incidental.  Hence  the  need  of  a  school.  In 
this  school  the  life  of  the  child  becomes  the  all- 
controlling  aim.  All  the  media  necessary  to  further 
the  growth  of  the  child  center  there.  Learning  ? 
certainly,  but  li\ang  primarily,  and  learning 
through  and  in  relation  to  this  lixdng.  When  we 
take  the  life  of  the  child  centered  and  organized 
in  this  way,  we  do  not  find  that  he  is  fi.rst  of  all  a 
listening  being;  quite  the  contrary. 

The  statement  so  frequently  made  that  educa- 
tion means  "drawing^it"  is  excellent,  if  we  mean 
simply  to  contrast  it  with  the  process  of  pouring 
in.  But,  after  all,  it  is  difficult  to  connect  the  idea 
of  drawing  out  wdth  the  ordinary  doings  of  the 
child  of  three,  four,  seven,  or  eight  years  of  age. 
He  is  already  running  over,  spilling  over,  with 
activities  of  all  kinds.  He  is  not  a  purely  latent 
being  whom  the  adult  has  to  approach  with  great 

.  caution  and  skill  in  order  gradually  to  draw  out 
some  hidden  germ  of  activity.     The  child  is  already 

.  intensely  active,  and  the  question  of  education  is 
the  question  of  taking  hold  of  his  activities,  of 
giving  them  direction.     Through  direction,  through 


38  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

organized  use,  they  tend  toward  valuable  results, 
instead  of  scattering  or  being  left  to  merely  impul- 
sive expression. 

If  we  keep  this  before  us,  the  difficulty  I  find 
uppermost  in  the  minds  of  many  people  regard- 
ing what  is  termed  the  new  education  is  not  so 
much  solved  as  dissolved;  it  disappears.  A  ques- 
tion often  asked  is:  If  you  begin  with  the  child's 
ideas,  impulses,  and  interests,  all  so  crude,  so 
random  and  scattering,  so  little  refined  or  spiritu- 
alized, how  is  he  going  to  get  the  necessar>'  disci- 
pline, culture,  and  information  ?  If  there  were  no 
way  open  to  us  except  to  excite  and  indulge  these 
impulses  of  the  child,  the  question  might  well  be 
asked.  We  should  either  have  to  ignore  and 
repress  the  activities  or  else  to  humor  them.  But 
if  we  have  organization  of  equipment  and  of  ma- 
terials, there  is  another  path  open  to  us.  We  can 
direct  the  child's  activities,  giving  them  exercise 
along  certain  lines,  and  can  thus  lead  up  to  the 
goal  which  logically  stands  at  the  end  of  the  paths 
followed. 

"If  wishes  were  horses,  beggars  would  ride." 
Since  they  are  not,  since  really  to  satisfy  an  impulse 
or  interest  means  to  work  it  out,  and  working  it 
out  involves  running  up  against  obstacles,  becom- 
ing acquainted  with  materials,  exercising  ingenuity, 
patience,  persistence,  alertness,  it  of  necessity 
involves  discipline — ordering  of  power — and  sup- 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  CHILD     39 

plies  knowledge.  Take  the  example  of  the  little 
child  who  wants  to  make  a  box.  If  he  stops  short 
with  the  imagination  or  wash,  he  certainly  will 
not  get  discipline.  But  when  he  attempts  to 
realize  his  impulse,  it  is  a  question  of  making  his 
idea  definite,  making  it  into  a  plan,  of  taking  the 
right  kind  of  wood,  measuring  the  parts  needed, 
giving  them  the  necessary  proportions,  etc.  There 
is  involved  the  preparation  of  materials,  the  sawing, 
planing,  the  sandpapering,  making  all  the  edges 
and  corners  to  fit.  Knowledge  of  tools  and  pro- 
cesses is  inevitable.  If  the  child  realizes  his 
instinct  and  makes  the  box,  there  is  plenty  of 
opportunity  to  gain  discipline  and  perseverance, 
to  exercise  effort  in  overcoming  obstacles,  and  to 
attain  as  well  a  great  deal  of  information. 

So  undoubtedly  the  little  child  who  thinks  he 
would  like  to  cook  has  little  idea  of  what  it  means 
or  costs,  or  what  it  requires.  It  is  simply  a  desire 
to  "mess  around,"  perhaps  to  imitate  the  activi- 
ties of  older  people.  And  it  is  doubtless  possible 
to  let  ourselves  down  to  that  level  and  simply 
humor  that  interest.  But  here,  too,  if  the  impulse 
is  exercised,  utilized,  it  runs  up  against  the  actual 
world  of  hard  conditions,  to  which  it  must  accom- 
modate itself;  and  there  again  come  in  the  factors 
of  discipline  and  knowledge.  One  of  the  children 
became  impatient,  recently,  at  having  to  work 
things  out  by  a  long  method  of  experimentation, 


4C  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY  . 

and  said:  "Why  do  we  bother  with  this?  Let's 
follow  a  recipe  in  a  cook-book."  The  teacher  asked 
the  children  where  the  recipe  came  from,  and  the 
conversation  showed  that  if  they  simply  followed 
this  they  would  not  understand  the  reasons  for 
what  they  were  doing.  They  were  then  quite 
willing  to  go  on  with  the  experimental  work.  To 
follow  that  work  will,  indeed,  give  an  illustration 
of  just  the  point  in  question.  Their  occupation 
happened  that  dav  to  be  the  cooking  of  eggs,  as 
making  a  transition  from  the  cooking  of  vegetables 
to  that  of  meats.  In  order  to  get  a  basis  of  com- 
parison they  first  summarized  the  constituent  food 
elements  in  the  vegetables  and  made  a  preliminary 
comparison  with  those  found  in  meat.  Thus  they 
found  that  the  woody  fiber  or  cellulose  in  vegetables 
corresponded  to  the  connective  tissue  in  meit, 
giving  the  element  of  form  and  structure.  They 
found  that  starch  and  starchy  products  were  char- 
acteristic of  the  vegetables,  that  mineral  salts  were 
found  in  both  alike,  and  that  there  was  fat  in  boih 
— a  small  quantity  in  vegetable  food  and  a  large 
amount  in  animal.  They  were  prepared  then  to 
take  up  the  study  of  albumen  as  the  characteristic 
feature  of  animal  food,  corresponding  to  starch  in 
the  vegetables,  and  were  ready  to  consider  the  con- 
ditions requisite  for  the  proper  treatment  of 
albumen — the  eggs  serving  as  tlie  material  of 
experiment. 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  TEE  LIFE  OF  THE  CHILD     41 

They  experimented  first  by  taking  water  at 
various  temperatures,  finding  out  when  it  was 
scalding,  simmering,  and  boiling  hot,  and  ascer- 
tained the  effect  of  the  various  degrees  of  tempera- 
ture on  the  white  of  the  egg.  That  worked  out, 
they  were  prepared,  not  simply  to  cook  eggs,  but 
to  understand  the  principle  involved  in  the  cooking 
of  eggs.  I  do  not  wish  to  lose  sight  of  the  universal 
In  the  particular  incident.  For  the  child  simply 
to  desire  to  cook  an  egg,  and  accordingly  drop  it  in 
(vater  for  three  minutes,  and  take  it  out  when  he 
is  told,  is  not  educative.  But  for  the  child  to 
realize  his  own  impulse  by  recognizing  the  facts, 
materials,  and  conditions  involved,  and  then  to 
regulate  his  impulse  through  that  recognition,  is 
educative.  This  i^Jhe  difference,  upon  which  I 
wish  to  insist,  between  exciting  or  indulging  an 
interest  and  realizing  it  through  its  direction. 

Another  instinct  of  the  child  is  the  use  of  pencil 
and  paper.  All  children  like  to  express  themselves 
through  the  medium  of  form  and  color.  If  you 
simply  indulge  this  interest  by  letting  the  child  go 
on  indefinitely,  there  is  no  growth  that  is  more 
than  accidental.  But  let  the  child  first  express  his 
impulse,  and  then  through  criticism,  question,  and 
suggestion  bring  him  to  consciousness  of  what  he 
has  done,  and  what  he  needs  to  do,  and  the  result 
is  quite  different.  Here,  for  example,  is  the  work 
of  a  seven-year-old  child.     It  is  not  average  work. 


42  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

it  is  the  best  work  done  among  the  little  children, 
but  it  illustrates  the  particular  principle  of  which 
I  have  been  speaking.  They  had  been  talking 
about  the  primitive  conditions  of  social  life  when 
people  lived  in  caves.  The  child's  idea  of  that 
found  expression  in  this  way:  the  cave  is  neatly 
set  up  on  the  hillside  in  an  impossible  way.  You 
see  the  conventional  tree  of  childhood — a  vertical 
line  with  horizontal  branches  on  each  side.  If 
the  child  had  been  allowed  to  go  on  repeating  this 
sort  of  thing  day  by  day,  he  would  be  indulging 
his  instinct  rather  than  exercising  it.  But  the 
child  was  now  asked  to  look  closely  at  trees,  to 
compare  those  seen  with  the  one  drawn,  to  exam- 
ine more  closely  and  consciously  into  the  conditions 
of  his  work.  Then  he  drew  trees  from  observation. 
Finally  he  drew  again  from  combined  observa- 
tion, memory,  and  imagination.  He  made  again 
a  free  illustration,  expressing  his  own  imaginative 
thought,  but  controlled  by  detailed  study  of  actual 
trees.  The  result  was  a  scene  representing  a  bit 
of  forest;  so  far  as  it  goes,  it  seems  to  me  to  have 
as  much  poetic  feeling  as  the  work  of  an  adult,  while 
at  the  same  time  its  trees  are,  in  their  proportions, 
possible  ones,  not  mere  symbols. 
•  If  we  roughly  classify  the  impulses  which  are 
available  in  the  school,  we  may  group  them  under 
four  heads.  There  is  the  social  instinct  of  the 
children  as  shown  in  conversation,  personal  inter- 


TEE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  UFE  OF  THE  CHILD     43 

course,  and  communication /  We  all  know  how 
self-centered  the  little  child  is  at  the  age  of  four  or 
five.  If  any  new  subject  is  brought  up,  if  he  says 
anything  at  all,  it  is:  "I  have  seen  that;"  or,  "My 
papa  or  mamma  told  me  about  that."  His  horizon 
is  not  large ;  an  experience  must  come  immediately 
home  to  him,  if  he  is  to  be  sufiiciently  interested  to 
relate  it  to  others  and  seek  theirs  in  return.  And 
yet  the  egoistic  and  limited  interest  of  little  chil- 
dren is  in  this  manner  capable  of  infinite  expansion. 
The  language  instinct  is  the  simplest  form  of  the 
social  expression  of  the  child.  Hence  it  is  a  great, 
perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  educational  resources. 

Then  there  is  the  instinct  of  making-^the  con- 
structive impulse.  The  child's  impulse  to  do  finds 
expression  first  in  play,  in  movement,  gesture,  and 
make-believe,  becomes  more  definite,  and  seeks 
outlet  in  shaping  materials  into  tangible  forms  and 
permanent  embodiment.  The  child  has  not  much 
instmct  for  abstract  inquiry.  The  instinct  of 
investigation  seems  to  grow  out  of  the  combination 
of  the  constructive  impulse  with  the  conversational. 
There  is  no  distinction  between  experimental 
science  for  little  children  and  the  work  done  in 
the  carpenter  shop.  Such  work  as  they  can  do  in 
physics  or  chemistry  is  not  for  the  purpose  of 
making  technical  generalizations  or  even  arriving 
at  abstract  truths.  Children  simply  like  to  do 
things  and  watch  to  see  what  will  happen.     But 


44  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

this  can  be  taken  advantage  of,  can  be  directed  into 
ways  where  it  gives  results  of  value,  as  well  as  be 
allowed  to  go  on  at  random. 
Z?  And  so  the  expressive  impulse  of  the  children,  the 
art  instinct,  grows  also  out  of  the  communicating 
and  constructive  instincts.  It  is  their  refinement 
and  full  manifestation.  Make  the  construction 
adequate,  make  it  full,  free,  and  flexible,  give  it 
a  social  motive,  something  to  tell,  and  you  have  a 
work  of  art.  Take  one  illustration  of  this  in  con- 
nection with  the  textile  work — sewing  and  weav- 
ing. The  children  made  a  primitive  loom  in  the 
shop;  here  the  constructive  instinct  was  appealed 
to.  Then  they  wished  to  do  something  with  this 
loom,  to  make  something.  It  was  the  type  of 
the  Indian  loom,  and  they  were  shown  blankets 
woven  by  the  Indians.  Each  child  made  a  design 
kindred  in  idea  to  those  of  the  Navajo  blankets,  and 
the  one  which  seemed  best  adapted  to  the  work  in 
hand  was  selected.  The  technical  resources  were 
limited,  but  the  coloring  and  form  were  worked  out 
by  the  children.  The  example  shown  was  made  by 
the  twelve-year-old  children.  Examination  shows 
that  it  took  patience,  thoroughness,  and  persever- 
ance to  do  the  work.  It  involved  not  merely  dis- 
cipline and  information  of  both  a  historical  sort 
and  the  elements  of  technical  design,  but  also 
something  of  the  spirit  of  art  in  adequately  con- 
veying an  idea. 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  UFE  OF  THE  CHILD     45 

One  more  instance  of  the  connection  of  the  art 
side  with  the  constructive  side:  The  children  had 
been  studying  primitive  spinning  and  carding, 
when  one  of  them,  twelve  years  of  age,  made  a 
picture  of  one  of  the  older  children  spinning.  Here 
is  another  piece  of  work  which  is  not  quite  average ; 
it  is  better  than  the  average.  It  is  an  illustration 
of  two  hands  and  the  drawing  out  of  the  wool  to 
get  it  ready  for  spinning.  This  was  done  by  a  child 
eleven  years  of  age.  But,  upon  the  whole,  with 
the  younger  children  especially,  the  art  impulse 
is  connected  mainly  with  the  social  instinct — the 
desire  to  tell,  to  represent. 

Now,  keeping  in  mind  these  fourfold  interests — 
the  interestjn jconversatiojj,  or  communication;  in 
inctuiry,  or  finding  out  things;  ip  . making.. things, 
or  construction;  and  jnjJ.tJstic  expression — we  may 
say  they  are  the  natural  resources,  the  uninvested 
capital,  upon  the  exercise  of  which  depends  the 
active  growth  of  the  child.  I  wish  to  give  one  or 
two  illustrations,  the  first  from  the  work  of  chil- 
dren seven  years  of  age.  It  illustrates  in  a  way 
the  dominant  desire  of  the  children  to  talk,  par- 
ticularly about  folks  and  of  things  in  relation  to 
folks.  If  you  observe  little  children,  you  will  find 
they  are  interested  in  the  world  of  things  mainly  in  ) 
its  connection  with  people,  as  a  background  and  ^ 
medium  of  human  concerns.  Many  anthropolo- 
gists have  told  us  there  are  certain  identities  in  the 


46  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

child  interests  with  those  of  primitive  life.  There 
is  a  sort  of  natural  recurrence  of  the  child  mind  to 
the  typical  activities  of  primitive  peoples;  witness 
the  hut  which  the  boy  likes  to  build  in  the  yard, 
playing  hunt,  with  bows,  arrows,  spears,  and  so  on. 
Again  the  question  comes :  What  are  we  to  do  with 
this  interest — are  we  to  ignore  it,  or  just  excite 
and  draw  it  out?  Or  shall  we  get  hold  of  it  and 
direct  it  to  something  ahead,  something  better? 
Some  of  the  work  that  has  been  planned  for  our 
seven-year-old  children  has  the  latter  end  in  view — 
to  utilize  this  interest  so  that  it  shall  become  a 
means  of  seeing  the  progress  of  the  human  race. 
The  children  begin  by  imagining  present  conditions 
taken  away  until  they  are  in  contact  with  nature 
at  first  hand.  That  takes  them  back  to  a  hunting 
people,  to  a  people  living  in  caves  or  trees  ahd 
getting  a  precarious  subsistence  by  hunting  and 
fishing.  They  imagine  as  far  as  possible  tlie  various 
natural  physical  conditions  adapted  to  that  sort 
of  life;  say,  a  hilly,  woody  slope,  near  mountains, 
and  a  river  where  fish  would  be  abundant.  Then 
they  go  on  in  imagination  through  the  hunting  to 
the  semi-agricultural  stage,  and  through  the 
nomadic  to  the  settled  agricultural  stage.  The 
point  I  wish  to  make  is  that  there  is  abundant 
opportunity  thus  given  for  actual  study,  for  inquiry 
which  results  in  gaining  informarion.  So,  while 
^the  instinct  primarily  appeals  to  the  social  side,  tlie 


CHILD  S    DRAWING    OF    A    GIKL   SPl-NNING 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  CHILD    47 

\  interest  of  the  child  in  people  and  their  doings  is 
carried  on  into  the  larger  world  of  reahty.  For 
example,  the  children  had  some  idea  of  primitive 
weapons,  of  the  stone  arrow-head,  etc.  That  pro- 
vided occasion  for  the  testing  of  materials  as  regards 
their  friability,  their  shape,  texture,  etc.,  resulting 
in  a  lesson  in  mineralogy,  as  they  examined  the 
different  stones  to  fijid  which  was  best  suited  to  the 
purpose.  The  discussion  of  the  iron  age  supplied 
a  demand  for  the  construction  of  a  smelting  oven 
made  out  of  clay  and  of  considerable  size.  As  the 
children  did  not  get  their  drafts  right  at  first,  the 
mouth  of  the  furnace  not  being  in  proper  relation 
to  the  vent  as  to  size  and  position,  instruction  in 
the  principles  of  combustion,  the  nature  of  drafts 
and  of  fuel,  was  required.  Yet  the  instruction  was 
not  given  ready-made;  it  was  first  needed,  and  then 
arrived  at  experimentally.  Then  the  children 
took  some  material,  such  as  copper,  and  went 
through  a  series  of  experiments,  fusing  it,  working 
it  into  objects;  and  the  same  experiments  were 
made  with  lead  and  other  metals.  This  work 
has  been  also  a  continuous  course  in  geography, 
since  the  children  have  had  to  imagine  and  work 
out  the  various  physical  conditions  necessary  to 
the  different  forms  of  social  life  implied.  What 
would  be  the  physical  conditions  appropriate  to 
pastoral  life?  to  the  beginning  of  agriculture?  to 
fishing?     What  would  be  the  natural  method  of 


48  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

exchange  between  these  peoples  ?  Having  worked 
out  such  points  in  conversation,  they  have  after- 
ward represented  them  in  maps  and  sand-molding. 
Thus  they  have  gained  ideas  of  the  various  forms 
of  the  configuration  of  the  earth,  and  at  the  same 
time  have  seen  them  in  their  relation  to  human 
activity,  so  that  they  are  not  simply  external  facts, 
but  are  fused  and  welded  with  social  conceptions 
regarding  the  life  and  progress  of  humanity.  The 
result,  to  my  mind,  justifies  completely  the  con- 
viction that  children,  in  a  year  of  such  work  (of 
five  hours  a  week  altogether),  get  infinitely  more 
lacquaintance  with  facts  of  science,  geography,  and 
anthropology  than  they  get  where  information  is 
the  professed  end  and  object,  where  they  are 
sunply  set  to  learning  facts  in  fixed  lessons.  As 
to  discipline,  they  get  more  training  of  attention, 
more  power  of  interpretation,  of  drawing  inferences, 
of  acute  observation  and  continuous  reflection, 
than  if  they  were  put  to  working  out  arbitrary 
problems  simply  for  the  sake  of  discipline. 

I  should  like  at  this  point  to  refer  to  the  recita- 
tion. We  all  know  what  it  has  been — a  place  where 
the  child  shows  off  to  the  teacher  and  the  other  chil- 
dren the  amount  of  information  he  has  succeeded 
in  assimilating  from  the  textbook.  From  this  other 
standpoint  the  recitation  becomes  pre-eminently 
a  social  meeting-place;  it  is  to  the  school  what  the 
spontaneous  conversation  is  at  home,  excepting 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  LIFE  OP  THE  CHILD    49 

that  it  is  more  organized,  following  definite  lines. 
The  recitation  becomes  the  social  clearing-house, 
where  experiences  and  ideas  are  exchanged  and  sub- 
jected to  criticism,  where  misconceptions  are  cor- 
rected, and  new  lines  of  thought  and  inquiry  are 
set  up. 

This  change  of  the  recitation,  from  an  examina- 
tion of  knowledge  already  acquired  to  the  free  play 
of  the  children's  communicative  instinct,  affects 
and  modifies  all  the  language  work  of  the  school. 
Under  the  old  regime  it  was  unquestionably  a 
most  serious  problem  to  give  the  children  a  full 
and  free  use  of  language.  The  reason  was  obvious. 
The  natural  modve  for  language  was  seldom  offered. 
In  the  pedagogical  textbooks  language  is  defined  as 
the  medium  of  expressing  thought.  It  becomes 
that,  more  or  less,  to  adults  with  trained  minds, 
but  it  hardly  needs  to  be  said  that  language  is 
primarily  a  social  thing,  a  means  by  which  we  give 
our  experiences  to  others  and  get  theirs  again  in 
return.  When  it  is  taken  away  from  its  natural 
purpose,  it  is  no  wonder  that  it  becomes  a  complex 
and  difficult  problem  to  teach  language.  Think 
of  the  absurdity  of  ha\dng  to  teach  language  as  a 
thing  by  itself.  If  there  is  anything  the  child  will 
do  before  he  goes  to  school,  it  is  to  talk  of  the  things 
that  interest  him.  But  when  there  are  no  vital 
interests  appealed  to  in  the  school,  when  language 
is  used  simply  for  the  repetition  of  lessons,  it  is  not 


50  TUE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

surprising  that  one  of  the  chief  difficulties  of  school 
work  has  come  to  be  instruction  in  the  mother- 
tongue.  Since  the  language  taught  is  unnatural, 
not  growing  out  of  the  real  desire  to  communicate 
vital  impressions  and  convictions,  the  freedom  of 
children  in  its  use  gradually  disappears,  until 
finally  the  high-school  teacher  has  to  invent  all 
kinds  of  devices  to  assibt  in  getting  any  spontaneous 
and  full  use  of  speech.  Moreover,  when  the  lan- 
guage instinct  is  appealed  to  in  a  social  way,  there 
is  a  continual  contact  with  reahty.  The  result  is 
that  the  child  always  has  something  in  his  mind 
to  talk  about,  he  has  something  to  say;  he  has  a 
thought  to  express,  and  a  thought  is  not  a  thought 
unless  it  is  one's  own.  On  the  traditional  method, 
the  child  must  say  something  that  he  has  merely 
learned.  There  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
between  having  something  to  say  and  having  to 
say  something.  The  child  who  has  a  variety  of 
materials  and  facts  wants  to  talk  about  them,  and 
his  language  becomes  more  refined  and  full,  because 
it  is  controlled  and  informed  by  reahties.  Reading 
and  writing,  as  well  as  the  oral  use  of  language, 
may  be  taught  on  this  basis.  It  can  be  done  in  a 
related  way,  as  the  outgrowth  of  the  child's  social 
desire  to  recount  his  experiences  and  get  in  return 
the  experiences  of  others,  directed  always  through 
contact  with  the  facts  and  forces  which  determine 
tlie  truth  communicated. 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  UFE  OF  THE  CHILD     51 

I  shall  not  have  time  to  speak  of  the  work  of  the 
older  childrrin,  where  the  original  crude  instincts 
of  construction  and  communication  have  been 
developed  into  something  like  scientifically  directed 
inqidry,  but  I  will  give  an  illustration  of  the  use  of 
language  following  upon  this  experimental  work. 
The  work  was  on  the  basis  of  a  simple  experiment 
of  the  commonest  sort,  gradually  leading  the  chil- 
dren out  into  geological  and  geographical  study. 
The  sentences  that  I  am  going  to  read  seem  to  me 
poetic  as  well  as  "scientific."  "A  long  time  ago 
when  the  earth  was  new,  when  it  was  lava,  there 
was  no  water  on  the  earth,  and  there  was  steam  all 
round  the  earth  up  in  the  air,  as  there  were  many 
gases  in  the  air.  One  of  them  was  carbon  dioxide. 
The  steam  became  clouds,  because  the  earth  began 
to  cool  off,  and  after  a  while  it  began  to  rain,  and 
the  water  came  down  and  dissolved  the  carbon 
dioxide  from  the  air."  There  is  a  good  deal  more 
science  in  that  than  probably  would  be  apparent 
at  the  outset.  It  represents  some  thr^e  months 
of  work  on  the  part  of  the  child.  The  children 
kept  daily  and  weekly  records,  but  this  is  part  of  the 
summing  up  of  the  quarter's  work.  I  call  this 
language  poetic,  because  the  child  has  a  clear  image 
and  has  a  personal  feeling  for  the  realities  imaged. 
I  extract  sentences  from  two  other  records  to  illus- 
trate further  the  vivid  use  of  language  when  there 
—is-a -vivid  experience  back  of  it.     "When  the  earth 


52  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

was  cold  enough  to  condense,  the  water,  with  the 
help  of  carbon  dioxide,  pulled  the  calcium  out  of  the 
rocks  into  a  large  body  of  water  where  the  little 
animals  could  get  it."  The  other  reads  as  follows: 
"When  the  earth  cooled,  calcium  was  in  the  rocks. 
Then  the  carbon  dioxide  and  water  united  and 
formed  a  solution,  and,  as  it  ran,  it  tore  out  the 
calcium  and  carried  it  on  to  the  sea,  where  there 
were  little  animals  who  took  it  out  of  solution." 
The  use  of  such  words  as  "pulled"  and  "tore" 
in  connection  with  the  process  of  chemical  combina- 
tion evidences  a  personal  realization  which  compels 
its  own  appropriate  expression. 

If  I  had  not  taken  so  much  time  in  my  other 
illustrations,  I  should  like  to  show  how,  beginning 
with  very  simple  material  things,  the  children  are 
led  on  to  larger  fields  of  investigation  and  to  the 
intellectual  discipline  that  is  the  accompaniment  of 
such  research.  I  will  simply  mention  the  experi- 
ment in  which  the  work  began.  It  consisted  in 
making  precipitated  chalk,  used  for  polishing 
metals.  The  children,  with  simple  apparatus — a 
a  tumbler,  lime  water,  and  a  glass  tube — precipi- 
tated the  calcium  carbonate  out  of  the  water;  and 
from  this  beginning  went  on  to  a  study  of  the 
processes  by  which  rocks  of  various  sorts,  igneous, 
sedimentary,  etc.,  had  been  formed  on  the  surface 
of  the  earth  and  the  places  they  occupy;  then  to 
points  in    the   geography   of   the   United   States, 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  CHILD     53 

Hawaii,  and  Porto  Rico;  to  the  effects  of  these 
various  bodies  of  rock,  in  their  various  configura- 
tions, upon  the  human  occupations;  so  that  this 
geological  record  finally  rounded  itself  out  into  the 
life  of  man  at  the  present  time.  The  children  saw 
and  felt  the  connection  between  these  geologic 
processes,  taking  place  ages  and  ages  ago,  and 
the  physical  conditions  determining  the  industrial 
occupations  of  today. 

Of  all  the  possibilities  involved  in  the  subject, 
"The  School  and  the  Life  of  the  Child,"  I  have 
selected  but  one,  because  I  have  found  that  that 
one  gives  people  more  difficulty,  is  more  of  a 
stumbling-block,  than  any  other.  One  may  be 
ready  to  admit  that  it  would  be  most  desirable  for 
the  school  to  be  a  place  in  which  the  child  should 
really  live,  and  get  a  life-experience  in  which  he 
should  dehght  and  find  meaning  for  its  own  sake. 
But  then  we  hear  this  inquiry:  How,  upon  this 
basis,  shall  the  child  get  the  needed  information; 
how  shall  he  undergo  the  required  discipline  ?  Yes, 
it  has  come  to  this,  that  vdih  many,  if  not  most, 
people  the  normal  processes  of  life  appear  to  be 
incompatible  with  getting  information  and  dis- 
cipline. So  I  have  tried  to  indicate,  in  a  highly 
general  and  inadequate  way  (for  only  the  schoo? 
itself,  in  its  daily  operation,  could  give  a  detailed 
and  worthy  representation) ,  how  the  problem  works 
itself  out — how  it  is  possible  to  lay  hold  upon  the 


54  TEE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

rudimentary  instincts  of  human  nature,  and,  by 
supplying  a  proper  medium,  so  to  control  their 
expression  as  not  only  to  facilitate  and  enrich  the 
growth  of  the  individual  child,  but  also  to  supply 
the  same  results,  and  far  more,  of  technical  informa- 
tion and  discipline  that  have  been  the  ideals  of 
education  in  the  past. 

But  although  I  have  selected  this  especial  way  of 
approach  (as  a  concession  to  the  question  almost 
universally  raised),  I  am  not  mlling  to  leave  the 
matter  in  this  more  or  less  negative  and  explanatory 
condition.  ,  Life  is  the  grea,t_thing  after  all;  the 
life  of  the  child  at  its  time  and  in  its  measure  no 
less  than  the  life  of  the  adult.  Strange  would  it 
be,  indeed,  if  intelligent  and  serious  attention  to 
what  the  child  jww  needs  and  is  capable  of  in  the 
way  of  a  rich,  valuable,  and  expanded  life  shoilld 
somehow  conflict  with  the  needs  and  possibilities 
of  later,  adult  life.  **Let  us  live  wath  our  children" 
certainly  means,  first  of  all,  that  our  children  shall 
live — not  that  they  shall  be  hampered  and  stunted 
by  being  forced  into  all  kinds  of  conditions,  the 
most  remote  consideration  of  which  is  relevancy  to 
the  present  life  of  the  child.  If  we  seek  the  king- 
dom of  heaven,  educationally,  all  other  things  shall 
be  added  unto  us — which,  being  interpreted,  is 
that  if  we  identify  ourselves  with  the  real  instincts 
and  needs  of  childhood,  and  ask  only  after  its  fullest 
assertion  and  growth,  the  discipline  and  information 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  CHILD     55 

and  culture  of  adult  life  shall  all  come  in  their  due 
season. 

Speaking  of  culture  reminds  me  that  in  a  way 
I  have  been  speaking  only  of  the  outside  of  the 
child's  activity — only  of  the  outward  expression 
of  his  impulses  toward  sa}dng,  making,  fijiding^^ 
out,  and  creating.  The  real  child,  it  hardly  need  / 
be  said,  lives  in  the  world  of  imaginative  values 
and  ideas  which  find  only  imperfect  outward, 
embodiment.  We  hear  much  nowadays  about 
the  cultivation  of  the  child's  "imagination." 
Then  we  undo  much  of  our  own  talk  and  work  by  a 
belief  that  the  imagination  is  some  special  part  of 
the  child  that  finds  its  satisfaction  in  some  one 
particular  direction — generally  speaking,  that  of 
the  unreal  and  make-believe,  of  the  myth  and 
made-up  story.  Why  are  we  so  hard  of  heart  and 
so  slow  to  believe  ?  The  imao^nation  is  the  medium 
in  which  the  chJldlives.  To  him  there  is  every- 
where and  in  everything  which  occupies  his  mind 
and  activity  at  all  a  surplusage  of  value  and  signifi- 
cance. The  question  of  the  relation  of  the  school 
to  the  child's  life  is  at  bottom  simply  this:  Shall 
we  ignore  this  native  setting  and  tendency,  dealing, 
not  with  the  living  child  at  all,  but  with  the  dead 
image  we  have  erected,  or  shall  we  give  it  play  and 
satisfaction  ?  If  we  once  believe  in  life  and  in  the 
life  of  the  child,  then  will  all  the  occupations  and 
uses  spoken  of,  then  will  all  history  and  science^ 


S6  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

become  instruments  of  appeal  and  materials  of 
culture  to  his  imagination^  and  through  that  to  the 
richness  and  the  orderliness  of  his  life.  Where  we 
now  see  only  the  outward  doing  and  the  outward 
product,  there,  behind  all  visible  results,  is  the 
readjustment  of  mental  attitude,  theenlarged  and 
sympathetic  vision,  the  sense  of  gro™g_power, 
and  the  willing  ability  to  identify  both  insight  and 
capacity  with  the  interests  of  the  world  and  man. 
Unless  culture  be  a  superficial  polish,  a  veneering 
of  mahogany  over  common  wood,  it  surely  is  this — 
the  growth  of  the  imagination  in  flexibility,  in  scope, 
and  in  sympathy,  till  the  life  which  the  individual 
lives  is  informed  with  the  life  of  nature  and  of 
society.  When  nature  and  society  can  live  in  the 
schoolroom,  when  the  forms  and  tools  of  learning 
are  subordinated  to  the  substance  of  experiertce, 
then  shall  there  be  an  opportunity  for  this  identi- 
fication, and  culture  shall  be  the  democratic  pass- 
word. 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION 


Ill 

WASTE  IN  EDUCATION 

The  subject  announced  for  today  was  "Waste 
in  Education."  I  should  like  first  to  state  briefly 
its  relation  to  the  two  preceding  lectures.  The 
first  dealt  with  the  school  in  its  social  aspects, 
and  the  necessary  readjustments  that  have  to  be 
made  to  render  it  efi"ective  in  present  social  con- 
ditions. The  second  dealt  with  the  school  in 
relation  to  the  growth  of  individual  children. 
Now  the  third  deals  with  the  school  as  itself  an 
institution,  in  relation  both  to  society  and  to  its 
own  members — the  children.  It  deals  with  the 
question  of  organization,  because  all  waste  is  the 
result  of  the  lack  of  it,  the  motive  l>'ing  behind 
organization  being  promotion  of  economy  and 
efficiency.  This  question  is  not  one  of  the  waste 
of  money  or  the  waste  of  things.  These  matters 
count;  but  the  primary  waste  is  that  of  Jj^maji 
life,  the  life  o£_the_ children  while  they  are  at 
school,  and  afterward  because  of  inadequate  and 
perverted  preparation. 

So,  when  we  speak  of  organization,  we  are  not 
to  think  simply  of  the  externals;  of  that  which 
goes  by  the  name  "school  system" — the  school 
board,  the  superintendent,  and  the  building,  the 

59 


6o  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

engaging  and  promotion  of  teachers,  etc.  These 
things  enter  in,  but  the  fundamental  organization 
is  that  of  the  school  itself  as  a  conmiunity  of  indi- 
viduals, in  its  relations  to  other  forms  of  social 
hfe.  All  waste  is  due  to  isolation.  Organiza- 
tion is  nothing  but  getting  things  into  connection 
with  one  another,  so  that  they  work  easily,  flexi- 
bly, and  fully.  Therefore  in  speaking  of  this 
question  of  waste  in  education  I  desire  to  call 
your  attention  to  the  isolation  of  the  various  parts 
of  the  school  system,  to  the  lack  of  unity  in  the 
aims  of  education,  to  the  lack  of  coherence  in  its 
studies  and  methods. 

I  have  made  a  chart  (I)  which,  while  I  speak 
of  the  isolations  of  the  school  system  itself,  may 
perhaps  appeal  to  the  eye  and  save  a  little  time 
in  verbal  explanations.  A  paradoxical  friend  bf 
mine  says  there  is  nothing  so  obscure  as  an  illus- 
tration, and  it  is  quite  possible  that  my  attempt 
to  illustrate  my  point  will  simply  prove  the  truth 
of  his  statement. 

The  blocks  represent  the  various  elements  in 
the  school  system  and  are  intended  to  indicate 
roughly  the  length  of  time  given  to  each  divi- 
sion, and  also  the  overlapping,  both  in  time 
and  in  subjects  studied,  of  the  individual  parts 
of  the  system.  With  each  block  is  given  the 
historical  conditions  in  which  it  arose  and  its 
ruling  ideal. 


is 

<y — 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  6 1 

The  school  system,  upon  the  whole,  has  grown 
from  the  top  down.  During  the  Middle  Ages  it 
was  essentially  a  cluster  of  professional  schools — 
especially  law  and  theology.  Our  present  uni- 
versity comes  down  to  us  from  the  Middle  Ages. 
I  will  not  say  that  at  present  it  is  a  mediaeval 
institution,  but  it  had  its  roots  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  it  has  not  outlived  all  mediaeval  traditions 
regarding  learning. 

The  kindergarten,  rising  with  the  present  cen- 
tury, was  a  union  of  the  nursery  and  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  Schelling;  a  wedding  of  the  plays  and 
games  which  the  mother  carried  on  with  her 
children  to  Schelling's  highly  romantic  and  sym- 
bolic philosophy.  The  elements  that  came  from 
the  actual  study  of  child  life — the  continuation 
of  the  nursery — have  remained  a  life-bringing 
force  in  all  education;  the  Schellingesque  factors 
made  an  obstruction  between  it  and  the  rest  of 
the  school  system — brought  about  isolations. 

The  line  drawn  over  the  top  indicates  that 
there  is  a  certain  interaction  between  the  kinder- 
garten and  the  primary  school;  for,  so  far  as  the 
primary  school  remained  in  spirit  foreign  to  the 
natural  interests  of  child  life,  it  was  isolated  from 
the  kindergarten,  so  that  it  is  a  problem,  at  pres- 
ent, to  introduce  kindergarten  methods  into  the 
primary  school;  the  problem  of  the  so-called 
connecting  class.     The  difficulty  is  that  the  two 


62  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

are  not  one  from  the  start.  To  get  a  connection 
the  teacher  has  had  to  climb  over  the  wall  instead 
of  entering  in  at  the  gate. 

On  the  side  of  aims,  the  ideal  of  the  kinder- 
garten was  the  moral  development  of  the  children, 
rather  than  instruction  or  discipline;  an  ideal 
sometimes  emphasized  to  the  point  of  sentimen- 
tality. The  primaiy_s^iiDl  grew  practically  out 
of  the  popular  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
when,  along  with  the  invention  of  printing  and 
the  growth  of  commerce,  it  became  a  business 
necessity  to  know  how  to  read,  write,  and  figure. 
The  aim  was  distinctly  a  practical  one;  it  was 
jitUity;  getting  command  of  these  tools,  the  sym- 
bols of  learning,  not  for  the  sake  of  learning,  but 
because  they  gave  access  to  careers  in  life  other- 
wise closed.  " 

The  division  next  to  the  primary  school  is  the 
grammar  school.  The  term  is  not  much  used  in 
the  West,  but  is  common  in  the  eastern  states. 
It  goes  back  to  the  time  of  the  revival  of  learn- 
ing— a  little  earlier  perhaps  than  the  conditions 
out  of  which  the  primary  school  originated,  and, 
even  when  contemporaneous,  having  a  ditlerent 
ideal.  It  had  to  do  with  the  study  of  language 
in  the  higher  sense;  because,  at  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance,  Latin  and  Greek  connected  people 
with  the  culture  of  the  past,  with  the  Roman  and 
Greek    world.     The    classic    languages    were    the 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  63 

only  means  of  escape  from  the  limitations  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Thus  there  sprang  up  the  proto- 
type of  the  grammar  school,  more  liberal  than 
the  university  (so  largely  professional  in  charac- 
ter), for  the  purpose  of  putting  into  the  hands  of 
the  people  the  key  to  the  old  learning,  that  men 
might  see  a  world  with  a  larger  horizon.  The 
object  was  primarily  culture,  secondarily  dis- 
cipline. It  represented  much  more  than  the 
present  grammar  school.  It  was  the  liberal  ele- 
ment in  the  college,  which,  extending  downward, 
grew  into  the  academy  and  the  high  school.  Thus 
the  secondary  school  is  still  in  part  just  a  lower 
college  (having  an  even  higher  curriculum  than 
the  college  of  a  few  centuries  ago)  or  a  prepara- 
tory department  to  a  college,  and  in  part  a  round- 
ing up  of  the  utilities  of  the  elementary  school. 

There  appear  then  two  products  of  the  nine,- 
teenth  century,  the  technical  and  normal  schools. 
The  schools  of  technology,  engineering,  etc.,  are, 
of  course,  mainly  the  development  of  nineteenth- 
century  business  conditions,  as  the  primary  school 
was  the  development  of  business  conditions  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  The  normal  school  arose 
because  of  the  necessity  for  training  teachers, 
with  the  idea  partly  of  professional  drill  and 
partly  that  of  culture. 

Without  going  more  into  detail,  we  have  some 
eight  different  parts  of  the  school  system  as  repre- 


64  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

sented  on  the  chart,  all  of  which  arose  historically 
at  different  times,  having  different  ideals  in  view, 
and  consequently  different  methods.  I  do  not 
wish  to  suggest  that  all  of  the  isolation,  all  of  the 
separation,  that  has  existed  in  the  past  between 
the  different  parts  of  the  school  system  still  per- 
sists. One  must,  however,  recognize  that  they  have 
never  yet  been  welded  into  one  complete  whole. 
The  great  problem  in  education  on  the  adminis- 
trative side  is  how  to  unite  these  different  parts. 

Consider  the  training  schools  for  teachers — 
the  normal  schools.  These  occupy  at  present  a 
somewhat  anomalous  position,  intermediate  be- 
tween the  high  school  and  the  college,  requiring 
the  high-school  preparation,  and  covering  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  college  work.  They  are  isolated 
from  the  higher  subject-matter  of  scholarship, 
since,  upon  the  whole,  their  object  has  been  to  train 
persons  how  to  teach,  rather  than  what  to  teach; 
while,  if  we  go  to  the  college,  we  find  the  other  half 
of  this  isolation — learning  what  to  teach,  with 
almost  a  contempt  for  methods  of  teaching.  The 
college  is  shut  off  from  contact  with  children  and 
youth.  Its  members,  to  a  great  extent,  away 
from  home  and  forgetting  their  own  childhood, 
become  eventually  teachers  with  a  large  amount  of 
subject-matter  at  command,  and  little  knowledge 
of  how  this  is  related  to  the  minds  of  those  to  whom 
it  is  to  be  taught.     In  this  division  between  what 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  65 

to  teach  and  how  to  teach,  each  side  suffers  from 
the  separation. 

It  is  interesting  to  follow  out  the  interrelation 
between  primary,  grammar,  and  high  schools. 
The  elementary  school  has  crowded  up  and  taken 
many  subjects  previously  studied  in  the  old  New 
England  grammar  school.  The  high  school  has 
pushed  its  subjects  down.  Latin  and  algebra 
have  been  put  in  the  upper  grades,  so  that  the 
seventh  and  eighth  grades  are,  after  all,  about 
all  that  is  left  of  the  old  grammar  school.  They 
are  a  sort  of  amorphous  composite,  being  partly 
a  place  where  children  go  on  learning  what  they 
already  have  learned  (to  read,  write,  and  figure), 
and  partly  a  place  of  preparation  for  the  high 
school.  The  name  in  some  parts  of  New  England 
for  these  upper  grades  was  "Intermediate  School." 
The  term  was  a  happy  one;  the  work  was  simply 
intermediate  between  something  that  had  been 
and  something  that  was  going  to  be,  having  no 
special  meaning  on  its  own  account. 

Just  as  the  parts  are  separated,  so  do  the  ideals 
differ— moral  development,  practical  utility,  gen- 
eral culture,  disdpUne,  and  professional  training. 
These  aims  are  each  especially  represented  in  some 
distinct  part  of  the  system  of  education;  and,  with 
the  growing  interaction  of  the  parts,  each  is  sup- 
posed to  afford  a  certain  amount  of  culture,  disci- 
pline, and  utiUty.     But  the  lack  of  fundamental 


66  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

unity  is  witnessed  in  the  fact  that  one  study 
is  still  considered  good  for  discipline,  and  another 
for  culture;  some  parts  of  arithmetic,  for  ex- 
ample, for  discipline  and  others  for  use;  literature 
for  culture;  grammar  for  discipline;  geography 
partly  for  utility,  partly  for  culture;  and  so  on. 
The  unity  of  education  is  dissipated,  and  the 
studies  become  centrifugal;  so  much  of  this  study 
to  secure  this  end,  so  much  of  that  to  secure 
another,  until  the  whole  becomes  a  sheer  com- 
compromise  and  patchwork  between  contending 
aims  and  disparate  studies.  The  great  problem 
in  education  on  the  administrative  side  is  to  secure 
the  unity  of  the  whole,  in  the  place  of  a  sequence 
of  more  or  less  unrelated  and  overlapping  parts, 
and  thus  to  reduce  the  waste  arising  from  friction, 
reduplication,  and  transitions  that  are  not  properh^^ 
bridged. 

In  this  second  symbolic  diagram  (II)  I  wish  to 
suggest  that  reaUy  the  only  way  to  unite  the  parts 
of  the  system  is  to  unite  each  to  life.  We  can  get 
only  an  artificial  unity  so  long  as  we  confine  our 
gaze  to  the  school  system  itself.  We  must  look 
at  it  as  part  of  the  larger  whole  of  social  life.  This 
block  (A)  in  the  center  represents  the  school  sys- 
tem as  a  whole,  (i)  At  one  side  we  have  the 
home,  and  the  two  arrows  represent  the  free  inter- 
play of  influences,  materials,  and  ideas  between 
the  home  life  and  that  of  the  school.     (2)  Below 


e 

(0 

u 


o 

r 

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s  ^ 

0 

< (0   (0   0 

a 

/ 

\, 

JC 

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1^ 

I* 

1% 

•C    ^ 

f/i 

^  s 

i2 

&i{ 

'c 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  67 

we  have  the  relation  to  the  natural  environment, 
the  great  field  of  geography  in  the  widest  sense. 
The  school  building  has  about  it  a  natural  environ- 
ment. It  ought  to  be  in  a  garden,  and  the  children 
from  the  garden  would  be  led  on  to  surrounding 
fields,  and  then  into  the  wider  country,  with  all 
its  facts  and  forces.  (3)  Above  is  represented 
busmess  life,  and  the  necessity  for  free  play  between 
the  school  and  the  needs  and  forces  of  industry. 
(4)  On  the  other  side  is  the  university  proper,  with 
its  various  phases,  its  laboratories,  its  resources  in 
the  way  of  Libraries,  museums,  and  professional^ 
schools. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  chUd,  the  great 
waste  in  the  school  comes  from  his  inability  to 
utilize  the  experiences  he  gets  outside  the  school 
m_any,  complete  and  free  way  within  the  school 
itself :  while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  unable  to 
apply  in  daily  life  what  he  is  learning  at  school. 
That  is  the  isolation  of  the  school — its  isolation 
frQagiJiie.  When  the  child  gets  into  the  school- 
room he  has  to  put  out  of  his  mind  a  large  part  of 
the  ideas,  interests,  and  activities  that  predomi- 
nate in  his  home  and  neighborhood.  So  the  school, 
being  unable  to  utilize  this  everyda.y  experience, 
sets  painfully  to  work,  on  another  tack  and  by  a 
variety  of  means,  to  arouse  in  the  child  an  interest 
in  school  studies.  While  I  was  visiting  in  the  city 
of  Moline  a  few  years  ago,  the  superintendent  told 


a- UK 


68  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

me  that  they  found  many  children  every  year 
who  were  surprised  to  learn  that  the  Mississippi 
river  in  the  textbook  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
stream  of  water  flowing  past  their  homes.  The 
geography  being  simply  a  matter  of  the  school- 
room, it  is  more  or  less  of  an  awakening  to  many 
children  to  And  that  the  whole  thing  is  nothing 
but  a  more  formal  and  definite  statement  of  the 
facts  which  they  see,  feel,  and  touch  every  day. 
When  we  think  that  we  all  live  on  the  earth,  that 
we  live  in  an  atmosphere,  that  our  lives  are  touched 
at  every  point  by  the  influences  of  the  soil,  flora, 
and  fauna,  by  considerations  of  light  and  heat, 
and  then  think  of  what  the  school  study  of  geog- 
raphy has  been,  we  have  a  typical  idea  of  the  gap 
existing  between  the  everyday  experiences  of  the 
child  and  the  isolated  material  supplied  in  such 
large  measure  in  the  school.  This  is  but  an 
instance,  and  one  upon  which  most  of  us  may 
reflect  long  before  we  take  the  present  artificiality 
of  the  school  as  other  than  a  matter  of  course  or 
necessity. 

Though  there  should  be  organic  connection 
between  the  school  and  business  life,  it  is  not 
meant  that  the  school  is  to  prepare  the  child  for 
any  particular  business,  but  that  there  should  be 
a  natural  connection  of  the  everyday  life  of  the 
child  with  the  business  environment  about  him, 
and  that  it  is  the  alTair  of  the  school  to  clarifv 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  69 

and  liberalize  this  connection,  to  bring  it  to  con- 
sciousness, not  by  introducing  special  studies, 
like  commercial  geography  and  arithmetic,  but 
by  keeping  ahve  the  ordinary  bonds  of  relation. 
The  subject  of  compound-business-partnership  is 
probably  not  in  many  of  the  arithmetics  nowa- 
days, though  it  was  there  not  a  generation  ago, 
for  the  makers  of  textbooks  said  that  if  they  left 
out  anything  they  could  not  sell  their  books. 
This  compound-business-partnership  originated 
as  far  back  as  the  sixteenth  century.  The  joint- 
stock  company  had  not  been  invented,  and  as 
large  commerce  with  the  Indies  and  Americas 
grew  up,  it  was  necessary  to  have  an  accumula- 
tion of  capital  with  which  to  handle  it.  One  man 
said,  "I  will  put  in  this  amount  of  money  for  six 
months,"  and  another,  "So  much  for  two  years," 
and  so  on.  Thus  by  joining  together  they  got 
money  enough  to  float  their  commercial  enter- 
prises. Naturally,  then,  "compound  partnership" 
was  taught  in  the  schools.  The  joint-stock  com- 
pany was  invented;  compound  partnership  dis- 
appeared, but  the  problems  relating  to  it  stayed 
in  the  arithmetics  for  two  hundred  years.  They 
were  kept  after  they  had  ceased  to  have  practical 
utiHty,  for  the  sake  of  mental  discipline — they 
were  "such  hard  problems,  you  know."  A  great 
deal  of  what  is  now  in  the  arithmetics  under  the 
the  head   of  percentage   is  of   the  same  nature. 


JO  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

Children  of  twelve  and  thirteen  years  of  age  go 
through  gain  and  loss  calculations,  and  various 
forms  of  bank  discount  so  complicated  that  the 
bankers  long  ago  dispensed  with  them.  And 
when  it  is  pointed  out  that  business  is  not  done 
this  way,  we  hear  again  of  "mental  discipline." 
And  yet  there  are  plenty  of  real  connections 
between  the  experience  of  children  and  business 
conditions  which  need  to  be  utilized  and  illumi- 
nated. The  child  should  study  his  commercial 
arithmetic  and  geography,  not  as  isolated  things 
by  themselves,  but  in  their  reference  to  his  social 
environment.  The  youth  needs  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  bank  as  a  factor  in  modern 
life,  with  what  it  does,  and  how  it  does  it;  and 
then  relevant  arithmetical  processes  would  h^ve 
some  meaning — quite  in  contradistinction  to  the 
time-absorbing  and  mind-killing  examples  in  per- 
centage, partial  payments,  etc.,  found  in  all  our 
aritlimetics. 

The  connection  with  the  university,  as  indi- 
cated in  this  chart,  I  need  not  dwell  upon.  I 
simply  wish  to  indicate  that  there  ought  to  be 
a  free  interaction  between  all  the  parts  of  the 
school  system.  There  is  much  of  utter  triviaUty 
of  subject-matter  in  elementary  and  secondary 
education.  When  we  investigate  it,  we  fmd  that 
it  is  full  of  facts  taught  that  are  not  facts,  which 
have  to  be  unlearned  later  on.     Now,  this  hap- 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  71 

pens  because  the  "lower"  parts  ot  our  system 
are  not  in  vital  connection  with  the  "higher." 
The  university  or  college,  in  its  idea,  is  a  place  of 
research,  where  investigation  is  going  on:  a  place 
of  libraries  and  museums,  where  the  best  resources 
of  the  past  are  gathered,  maintained,  and  organ- 
ized. It  is,  however,  as  true  in  the  school  as  in 
the  university  that  the  spirit  of  inquiry  can  bt 
got  only  through  and  with  the  attitude  of  inquiry. 
The  pupil  must  learn  what  has  meaning,  what 
enlarges  his  horizon,  instead  of  mere  trivialities. 
He  mast  become  acquainted  with  truths,  instead 
of  things  that  were  regarded  as  such  fifty  years 
ago  or  that  are  taken  as  interesting  by  the  mis- 
understanding of  a  partially  educated  teacher. 
It  is  difficult  to  see  how  these  ends  can  be  reached 
except  as  the  most  advanced  part  of  the  educa- 
tional system  is  in  complete  interaction  with  the 
most  rudimentary. 

The  next  chart  (III)  is  an  enlargement  of  the 
second.  The  school  building  has  swelled  out,  so 
to  speak,  the  surrounding  environment  remaining 
the  same,  the  home,  the  garden  and  country,  the 
relation  to  business  life  and  the  university.  The 
object  is  to  show  what  the  school  must  become 
to  get  out  of  its  isolation  and  secure  the  organic 
connection  with  social  life  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking.  It  is  not  our  architect's  plan  for  the 
school  building  that  we  hope  to  have;   but  it  is  a 


72  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

diagrammatic  representation  of  the  idea  which 
we  want  embodied  in  the  school  building.  On 
the  lower  side  you  see  the  dining-room  and  the 
kitchen,  at  the  top  the  wood  and  metal  shops  and 
the  textile  room  for  sewing  and  weaving.  The 
center  represents  the  manner  in  which  aU  come 
together  in  the  library;  that  is  to  say,  in  a  collec- 
tion of  the  intellectual  resources  of  all  kinds  that 
throw  light  upon  the  practical  work,  that  give  it 
meaning  and  liberal  value.  If  the  four  comers 
represent  practice,  the  interior  represents  the 
theory  of  the  practical  activities.  In  other  words, 
the  object  of  these  forms  of  practice  in  the  school 
is  not  found  chiefly  in  themselves,  or  in  the  tech- 
nical skill  of  cooks,  seamstresses,  carpenters,  and 
masons,  but  in  their  connection,  on  the  spcial 
side,  with  the  Hfe  without;  while  on  the  individual 
side  they  respond  to  the  child's  need  of  action,  of 
expression,  of  desire  to  do  something,  to  be  con- 
structive and  creative,  instead  of  simply  passive 
and  conforming.  Their  great  significance  is  that 
they  keep  the  balance  between  the  social  and 
individual  sides — the  chart  symbolizing  particu- 
larly the  connection  with  the  social.  Here  on 
one  side  is  the  home.  How  naturally  the  lines  of 
connection  play  back  and  forth  between  the  home 
and  the  kitchen  and  the  textile  room  of  the  school ! 
The  child  can  carry  over  what  he  learns  in  the 
home  and  utilize  it  in  the  school;    and  the  things 


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WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  73 

learned  in  the  school  he  applies  at  home.  These 
are  the  two  great  things  in  breaking  down  isola- 
tion, in  getting  connection — to  have  the  child 
come  to  school  with  all  the  experience  he  has  got 
outside  the  school,  and  to  leave  it  with  something- 
to  be  immediately  used  in  his  everyday  life.  The 
child  comes  to  the  traditional  school  with  a 
healthy  body  and  a  more  or  less  unwilling  mind, 
though,  in  fact,  he  does  not  bring  both  his  body 
and  mind  with  him;  he  has  to  leave  his  mind 
behind,  because  there  is  no  way  to  use  it  in  the 
school.  If  he  had  a  purely  abstract  mind,  he 
could  bring  it  to  school  with  him,  but  his  is  a 
concrete  one,  interested  in  concrete  things,  and 
unless  these  things  get  over  into  school  life  he 
cannot  take  his  mind  with  him.  What  we  want 
is  to  have  the  child  come  to  school  with  a  whole 
mind  and  a  whole  body,  and  leave  school  with  a 
fuller  mind  and  an  even  healthier  body.  And 
speaking  of  the  body  suggests  that,  while  there 
is  no  gymnasium  in  these  diagrams,  Jhe^  active 
life  carried  on  in  its  four  corners  brings  with  it 
constant  physical  exercise,  while  our  gymnasium 
proper  will  deal  with  the  particular  weaknesses 
of  children  and  their  correction,  and  will  attempt 
more  consciously  to  build  up  the  thoroughly 
sound  body  as  the  abode  of  the  sound  mind. 

That  the  dining-room  and  kitchen  connect  with 
the,  country  and  its  processes  and  products  it  is 


74  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

hardly  necessary  to  say.  Cooking  may  be  so 
taught  that  it  has  no  connection  with  country  life 
and  with  the  sciences  that  find  their  unity  in  geog- 
raphy. Perhaps  it  generally  has  been  taught 
without  these  connections  being  really  made.  But 
all  the  materials  that  come  into  the  kitchen  have 
their  origin  in  the  country;  they  come  from  the 
soil,  are  nurtured  through  the  influences  of  light 
and  water,  and  represent  a  great  variety  of  local 
environments.  Through  this  connection,  extend- 
ing from  the  garden  into  the  larger  world,  the 
child  has  his  most  natural  introduction  to  the 
study  of  the  sciences.  Where  did  these  things 
grow  ?  What  was  necessary  to  their  growth  ? 
What  their  relation  to  the  soil  ?  What  the  efi"ect 
of  different  climatic  conditions?  and  so  on.  ,We 
ail  know  what  the  old-fashioned  botany  was: 
partly  collecting  flowers  that  were  pretty,  press- 
ing and  mounting  them;  partly  pulling  tliese 
flowers  to  pieces  and  giving  technical  names  to 
the  different  parts,  finding  all  the  different  leaves, 
naming  all  their  different  shapes  and  forms.  It 
was  a  study  of  plants  without  any  reference  to 
the  soil,  to  the  country,  or  to  growth.  In  contrast, 
a  real  study  of  plants  takes  them  in  their  natural 
environment  and  in  their  uses  as  well,  not  simply 
as  food,  but  in  all  their  adaptations  to  the  social 
life  of  man.  Cooking  becomes  as  well  a  most 
natural  introduction   to   the  study  of  chemistry. 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  75 

giving  the  child  here  also  something  which  he  can 
at  once  bring  to  bear  upon  his  daily  experience. 
I  once  heard  a  very  intelligent  woman  say  that  she 
could  not  understand  how  science  could  be  taught 
to  Uttle  children,  because  she  did  not  see  how  they 
could  understand  atoms  and  molecules.  In  other 
words,  since  she  did  not  see  how  highly  abstract 
facts  could  be  presented  to  the  child  independently 
of  daily  experience,  she  could  not  understand  how 
science  could  be  taught  at  all.  Before  we  smile 
at  this  remark,  we  need  to  ask  ourselves  if  she  is 
alone  in  her  assumption,  or  whether  it  simply 
formulates  the  principle  of  almost  all  our  school 
practice. 

The  same  relations  with  the  outside  world  are 
found  in  the  carpentry  and  the  textile  shops. 
They  connect  with  the  country,  as  the  source  of 
their  materials,  with  physics,  as  the  science  of 
appl}dng  energy,  with  commerce  and  distribu- 
tion, with  art  in  the  development  of  architecture 
and  decoration.  They  have  also  an  intimate  con- 
nection with  the  university  on  the  side  of  its 
technological  and  engineering  schools;  with  the 
laboratory  and  its  scientific  methods  and  results. 

To  go  back  to  the  square  which  is  marked  the 
library  (Chart  III,  A) :  if  you  imagine  rooms  half 
in  the  four  comers  and  half  in  the  library,  you  will 
get  the  idea  of  the  recitation-xoom.  That  is  the 
place  where  the  children  bring  the  experiences,  the 


76  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

problems,  the  questions,  the  particular  facts  which 
they  have  found,  and  discuss  them  so  that  new 
light  may  be  thrown  upon  them,  particularly  new 
light  from  the  experience  of  others,  the  accumu- 
lated wisdom  of  the  world — symbolized  in  the 
library.  Here  is  the  organic  relation  of  theory  and 
practice;  the  child  not  simply  doing  things,  but 
gettincr  also  the  idea  of  what  he  does;  getting 
from  the  start  some  intellectual  conception  that 
enters  into  his  practice  and  enriches  it;  while 
every  idea  finds,  directly  or  indirectly,  some  appli- 
cation, in  experience  and  has  some  effect  upon 
life.  This,  I  need  hardly  say,  fixes  the  position  of 
the  "book"  or  reading  in  education.  Harmful 
as  a  substitute  for  experience,  it  is  aU-important 
in  interpreting  and  expanding  experience.  . 

The  other  chart  (IV)  illustrates  precisely  the 
same  idea.  It  gives  the  symbolic  upper  story  of 
this  ideal  school.  In  the  upper  comers  are  the 
laboratories;  in  the  lower  comers  are  the  studios 
for  art  work,  both  the  graphic  and  auditory  arts. 
The  questions,  the  chemical  and  physical  problems, 
arising  in  the  kitchen  and  shop,  are  taken  to  the 
laboratories  to  be  worked  out.  For  instance,  this 
past  week  one  of  the  older  groups  of  children  doing 
practical  work  in  weaving,  which  involved  the  use 
of  the  spinning  wheel,  worked  out  the  diagrams 
of  the  direction  of  forces  concerned  in  treadle  and 
wheel,  and  the  ratio  of  velocities  between  wheel 


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WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  77 

and  spindle.  In  the  same  manner,  the  plants 
with  which  the  child  has  to  do  in  cooking  afford 
the  basis  for  a  concrete  interest  in  botany  and  may 
be  taken  and  studied  by  themselves.  In  a  certain 
school  in  Boston  science  work  for  months  was 
centered  in  the  growth  of  the  cotton  plant,  and  yet 
something  new  was  brought  in  every  day.  We 
hope  to  do  similar  work  with  all  the  types  of  plants 
that  furnish  materials  for  sewing  and  weaving. 
These  examples  will  suggest,  I  hope,  the  relation 
which  the  laboratories  bear  to  the  rest  of  the  school. 
The  drawing  and  music,  or  the  graphic  and 
auditory  arts,  represent  the  culmination,  the 
idealization,  the  highest  point  of  refinement  of 
all  the  w^ork  carried  on.  I  think  everybody  who 
has  not  a  purely  literary  view  of  the  subject  recog- 
nizes that  genuine  art  grows  out  of  the  work  of 
the  artisan.  The  art  of  the  Renaissance  was 
great  because  it  grew  out  of  the  manual  arts  of 
life.  It  did  not  spring  up  in  a  separate  atmos- 
phere, however  ideal,  but  carried  on  to  their 
spiritual  meaning  processes  found  in  homely  and 
everyday  forms  of  life.  The  school  should  observe 
this  relationship.  The  merely  artisan  side  is 
narrow,  but  the  mere  art,  taken  by  itself,  and 
grafted  on  from  without,  tends  to  become  forced, 
empty,  sentimental.  I  do  not  mean,  of  course, 
that  all  art  work  must  be  correlated  in  detail  to 
the  other  work  of  the  school,  but  simply  that  a 


78  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

spirit  of  union  gives  vitality  to  the  art  and  depth 
and  richness  to  the  other  work.  All  art  involves 
physical  organs — the  eye  and  hand,  the  ear  and 
voice;  and  yet  it  is  something  more  than  the  mere 
technical  skill  required  by  the  organs  of  expression. 
It  involves  an  idea,  a  thought,  a  spiritual  rendering 
of  things;  and  yet  it  is  other  than  any  number  of 
ideas  by  themselves.  It  is  a  living  union  of 
thought  and  the  instrument  of  expression.  This 
union  is  symbolized  by  saying  that  in  the  ideal 
school  the  art  work  might  be  considered  to  be  that 
of  the  shops,  passed  through  the  alembic  of  library 
and  museum  into  action  again. 

Take  the  textile  room  as  an  illustration  of  such 
a  synthesis.  I  am  talking  about  a  future  school, 
the  one  we  hope,  some  time,  to  have.  The  basal 
fact  in  that  room  is  that  it  is  a  workshop,  doing 
actual  things  in  sewing,  spinning,  and  weaving. 
The  children  come  into  immediate  connection 
with  the  materials,  with  various  fabrics  of  silk, 
cotton,  linen,  and  wool.  Information  at  once 
appears  in  connection  with  these  materials;  their 
origin,  history,  their  adaptation  to  particular  uses, 
and  the  machines  of  various  kinds  by  which  the 
raw  materials  are  utilized.  Discipline  arises  in 
dealing  with  the  problems  involved,  both  theo- 
retical and  practical.  Whence  docs  the  culture 
arise  ?  Partly  from  seeing  all  these  things  reflected 
through  the  medium  of  their  scientific  and  historic 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  79 

conditions  and  associations,  whereby  the  child 
learns  to  appreciate  them  as  technical  achieve- 
ments, as  thoughts  precipitated  in  action;  and 
partly  because  of  the  introduction  of  the  art  idea 
into  the  room  itself.  In  the  ideal  school  there 
would  be  something  of  this  sort:  first,  a  complete 
industrial  museum,  giving  samples  of  materials 
in  various  stages  of  manufacture,  and  the  imple- 
ments, from  the  simplest  to  the  most  complex, 
used  in  dealing  with  them;  then  a  collection  of 
photographs  and  pictures  illustrating  the  land- 
scapes and  the  scenes  from  which  the  materials 
come,  their  native  homes,  and  their  places  of 
manufacture.  Such  a  collection  would  be  a  vivid 
and  continual  lesson  in  the  synthesis  of  art,  science, 
and  industry.  There  would  be,  also,  samples  of 
the  more  perfect  forms  of  textile  work,  as  Italian, 
French,  Japanese,  and  Oriental.  There  would 
be  objects  illustrating  motives  of  design  and 
decoration  which  have  entered  into  production. 
Literature  would  contribute  its  part  in  its  ideal- 
ized representation  of  the  world-industries,  as 
the  Penelope  in  the  Odyssey — a  classic  in  literature 
because  the  character  is  an  adequate  embodiment 
of  a  certain  industrial  phase  of  social  life.  So, 
from  Homer  down  to  the  present  time,  there  is 
a  continuous  procession  of  related  facts  which 
have  been  translated  into  terms  of  art.  Music 
lends  its  share,  from  the  Scotch  song  at  the  wheel 


8o  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

to  the  spinning  song  of  Marguerite,  or  of  Wagner's 
Senta.  The  shop  becomes  a  pictured  museum, 
appealing  to  the  eye.  It  would  have  not  only 
materials — beautiful  woods  and  designs — but  would 
give  a  synopsis  of  the  historical  evolution  of 
architecture  in  its  drawings  and  pictures. 

Thus  I  have  attempted  to  indicate  how  the 
school  may  be  connected  with  life  so  that  the 
experience  gained  by  the  child  in  a  familiar, 
commonplace  way  is  carried  over  and  made  use  of 
there,  and  what  the  child  learns  in  the  school  is 
carried  back  and  appUed  in  everyday  life,  makmg 
the  school  an  organic  whole,  instead  of  a  com- 
posite of  isolated  parts.  The  isolation  of  studies 
as  well  as  of  parts  of  the  school  system  disappears. 
Experience  has  its  geographical  aspect,  its  artistic 
and  its  literary,  its  scientific  and  its  historical  sides. 
All  studies  arise  from  aspects  of  the  one  earth  and 
the  one  Ufe  Uved  upon  it.  We  do  not  have  a  series 
of  stratified  earths,  one  of  which  is  mathematical, 
another  physical,  another  historical,  and  so  on. 
We  should  not  be  able  to  live  very  long  in  any  one 
taken  by  itself.  We  live  in  a  world  where  all  sides 
are  bound  together.  All  studies  grow  out  of 
relations  in  the  one  great  common  world.  When 
the  child  hvcs  in  varied  but  concrete  and  active 
relationship  to  this  common  world,  his  studies 
are  naturally  unified.  It  will  no  longer  be  a  prob- 
lem  to   correlate   studies.     The   teacher   will   not 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  8l 

have  to  resort  to  all  sorts  of  devices  to  weave  a 
little  arthmetic  into  the  history  lesson,  and  the  like. 
Relate  the  school  to  life,  and  all  studies  are  of 
necessity  correiated. 

Moreover,  if  the  school  is  related  as  a  whole  to 
life  as  a  whole,  its  various  aims  and  ideals— cul- 
ture, discipline,  information,  utility — cease  to  be 
variants,  for  one  of  which  we  must  select  one 
study  and  for  another  another.  The  growth  of 
the  child  in  the  direction  of  social  capacity  and 
service,  his  larger  and  more  vital  union  with  Ufe, 
becomes  the  unifying  aim;  and  discipline,  culture, 
and  information  fall  into  place  as  phases  of  this 
growth. 

I  wish  to  say  one  word  more  about  the  rela- 
tionship of  our  particular  school  to  the  University. 
The  problem  is  to  unify,  to  organize,  education, 
to  bring  all  its  various  factors  together,  through 
putting  it  as  a  whole  into  organic  union  with 
everyday  life.  That  which  lies  back  of  the  peda- 
gogical school  of  the  University  is  the  necessity 
of  working  out  something  to  serve  as  a  model  for 
such  unification,  extending  from  work  beginning 
with  the  four-year-old  child  up  through  the 
graduate  work  of  the  University.  Already  we 
have  much  help  from  the  University  in  scientific 
work  planned,  sometimes  even  in  detail,  by  heads 
of  the  departments.  The  graduate  student  comes 
to  us  with  his  researches  and  methods,  suggesting 


82  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

ideas  and  problems.  The  library  and  museum 
are  at  hand.  We  want  to  bring  all  things  edu- 
cational together;  to  break  down  the  barriers 
that  divide  the  education  of  the  little  child  from 
the  instruction  of  the  maturing  youth;  to  identify 
the  lower  and  the  higher  education,  so  that  it 
shall  be  demonstrated  to  the  eye  that  there  is  no 
lower  and  higher,  but  simply  education. 

Speaking  more  especially  with  reference  to  the 
pedagogical  side  of  the  work:  I  suppose  the  oldest 
university  chair  of  pedagogy  in  our  country  is 
about  twenty  years  old — that  of  the  University 
of  Michigan,  founded  in  the  latter  seventies. 
But  there  are  only  one  or  two  that  have  tried  to 
make  a  connection  between  theory  and  practice. 
They  teach  for  the  most  part  by  theory,  by  lectures, 
by  reference  to  books,  rather  than  through  the 
actual  work  of  teaching  itself.  At  Columbia, 
through  the  Teachers  College,  there  is  an  extensive 
and  close  connection  between  the  University  and 
the  training  of  teachers.  Something  has  been 
done  in  one  or  two  other  places  along  the  same 
line.  We  want  an  even  more  intimate  union  here, 
so  that  the  University  shall  put  all  its  resources 
at  the  disposition  of  the  elementary  school,  con- 
tributing to  the  evolution  of  valuable  subject- 
matter  and  right  method,  while  the  school  in  turn 
will  be  a  laboratory  in  which  the  student  of  edu- 
cation   sees    theories    and    ideas    demonstrated, 


WASTE  IN  EDUCATION  83 

tested,  criticized,  enforced,  and  the  evolution  of 
new  truths.  We  want  the  school  in  its  relation 
to  the  University  to  be  a  working  model  of  a 
unified  education. 

A  word  as  to  the  relation  of  the  school  to  edu- 
cational interests  generally.  I  heard  once  that 
the  adoption  of  a  certain  method  in  use  in  our 
school  was  objected  to  by  a  teacher  on  this  ground : 
''You  know  that  it  is  an  experimental  school. 
They  do  not  work  under  the  same  conditions  that 
we  are  subject  to."  Now,  the  purpose  of  per- 
forming an  experiment  is  that  other  people  need 
not  experiment;  at  least  need  not  experiment  so 
much,  may  have  something  definite  and  positive 
to  go  by.  An  experiment  demands  particularly 
favorable  conditions  in  order  that  results  may  be 
reached  both  freely  and  securely.  It  has  to  work 
unhampered,  with  all  the  needed  resources  at 
command.  Laboratories  lie  back  of  all  the  great 
business  enterprises  of  today,  back  of  every  great 
factory,  every  railway  and  steamship  system. 
Yet  the  laboratory  is  not  a  business  enterprise; 
it  does  not  aun  to  secure  for  itself  the  conditions 
of  business  Ufe,  nor  does  the  commercial  under- 
taking repeat  the  laboratory.  There  is  a  difference 
between  working  out  and  testing  a  new  truth,  or 
a  new  method,  and  applying  it  on  a  wide  scale, 
making  it  available  for  the  mass  of  men,  making 
it  conmiercial.     But  the  first  thing  is  to  discover 


84  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

the  truth,  to  afford  all  necessary  facilities,  for  this 
is  the  most  practical  thing  in  the  world  in  the  long 
nm.  We  do  not  expect  to  have  other  schools 
literally  imitate  what  we  do.  A  working  model 
is  not  something  to  be  copied;  it  is  to  afiford  a 
demonstration  of  the  feasibility  of  the  principle, 
and  of  the  methods  which  make  it  feasible.  So 
(to  come  back  to  our  own  point)  we  want  here  to 
work  out  the  problem  of  the  unity,  the  organ- 
ization of  the  school  system  in  itself,  and  to  do  this 
by  relating  it  so  intimately  to  Ufe  as  to  demonstrate 
the  possibility  and  necessity  of  such  organization 
tor  all  education. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  ELEMENTARY 
EDUCATION 


IV 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  ELEMENTARY 
EDUCATION 

Naturally,  most  of  the  public  is  interested  in 
what  goes  on  day  by  day  in  a  school  in  direct 
relation  to  the  children  there.  This  is  true  of 
parents  who  send  their  boys  and  girls  for  the  sake 
of  the  personal  results  they  wish  to  secure,  not  for 
the  sake  of  contributing  to  educational  theory. 
In  the  main,  it  is  true  of  visitors  to  a  school  who 
recognize,  in  var}^ing  degrees,  what  is  actually 
done  with  the  children  before  their  eyes,  but  who 
rarely  have  either  the  interest  or  the  time  to  con- 
sider the  work  in  relation  to  underlying  problems. 
A  school  cannot  lose  sight  of  this  aspect  of  its  work, 
since  only  by  attending  to  it  can  the  school  retain 
the  confidence  of  its  patrons  and  the  presence  of  its 
pupils. 

Nevertheless  a  school  conducted  by  a  depart- 
ment of  a  university  must  have  another  aspect. 
From  the  university  standpoint,  the  most  impor- 
tant part  of  its  work  is  the  scientific — the  con- 
tribution it  makes  to  the  progress  of  educational 
thinking.  The  aim  of  educating  a  certain  nuinber 
of  children  would  hardly  justify  a  university  in 
departing  from  the  tradition  which  limits  it  to 


88  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

those  who  have  completed  their  secondary  instruc- 
tion. Only  the  scientific  aim,  the  conduct  of  a 
laboratory,  comparable  to  other  scientific  labora- 
tories, can  furnish  a  reason  for  the  maintenance  by 
a  university  of  an  elementary  school.  Such  a 
school  is  a  laboratory  of  applied  psychology.  That 
is,  it  has  a  place  for  the  study  of  mind  as  mani- 
fested and  developed  in  the  child,  and  for  the  search 
after  materials  and  agencies  that  seem  most  likely  to 
fulfil  and  further  the  conditions  of  normal  growth. 

It  is  not  a  normal  school  or  a  department  for 
the  training  of  teachers.  It  is  not  a  model  school. 
It  is  not  intended  to  demonstrate  any  one  special 
idea  or  doctrine.  Its  task  is  the  problem  of  view- 
ing the  education  of  the  child  in  the  light  of  the 
principles  of  mental  activity  and  processes  of 
growth  made  known  by  modern  psychology^  The 
problem  by  its  nature  is  an  infinite  one.  All  that 
any  school  can  do  is  to  make  contributions  here 
and  there,  and  to  stand  for  the  necessity  of  con- 
sidering education,  both  theoretically  and  prac- 
tically, in  this  light.  This  being  the  end,  the 
school  conditions  must,  of  course,  agree.  To 
endeavor  to  study  the  process  and  laws  of  growth 
under  such  artificial  conditions  as  prevent  many 
of  the  chief  facts  of  child  life  from  showing  them- 
selves is  an  obvious  absurdity. 

In  its  practical  aspect,  this  laboratory  problem 
takes  the  form  of  the  construction  of  a  course  of 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION     89 

Study  which  hannonizes  with  the  natural  history 
of  the  growth  of  the  child  in  capacity  and  experi- 
ence. The  question  is  the  selection  of  the  kind, 
variety,  and  due  proportion  of  subjects,  answering 
most  definitely  to  the  dominant  needs  and  powers 
of  a  given  period  of  growth,  and  of  those  modes 
of  presentation  that  will  cause  the  selected  material 
to  enter  \atally  into  growth.  We  cannot  admit 
too  fully  or  too  freely  the  limits  of  our  knowledge 
and  the  depths  of  our  ignorance  in  these  matters. 
No  one  has  a  complete  hold  scientifically  upon  the 
chief  psychological  facts  of  any  one  year  of  child 
life.  It  would  be  sheer  presumption  to  claim  that 
jue/t  the  material  best  fitted  to  promote  this  growth 
has  as  yet  been  discovered.  The  assumption  of  an 
educational  laboratory  is  rather  that  enough  is 
known  of  the  conditions  and  modes  of  growth  to 
make  intelligent  inquiry  possible;  and  that  it  is 
only  by  acting  upon  what  is  already  known  that 
more  can  be  found  out.  The  chief  point  is  such 
experimentation  as  will  add  to  our  reasonable  con- 
victions. The  demand  is  to  secure  arrangements 
that  wall  permit  and  encourage  freedom  of  investi- 
gation; that  will  give  some  assurance  that  impor- 
tant facts  will  not  be  forced  out  of  sight;  conditions 
that  will  enable  the  educational  practice  indicated 
by  the  inquiry  to  be  sincerely  acted  upon,  without 
the  distortion  and  suppression  arising  from  undue 
dependence    upon     tradition    and    preconceived 


go  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

notions.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  school  would 
be  an  experimental  station  in  education. 

What,  then,  are  the  chief  working  hypotheses 
that  have  been  adopted  from  psychology  ?  What 
educational  counterparts  have  been  hit  upon  as  in 
some  degree  in  line  with  the  adopted  psychology  ? 

The  discussion  of  these  questions  may  be 
approached  by  pointing  out  a  contrast  between 
contemporary  psychology  and  the  psychology  of 
former  days.  The  contrast  is  a  triple  one.  .  Earlier 
psychology  regarded  mind  as  a  purely  individual 
affair  in  direct  and  naked  contact  with  an  external 
world.  The  only  question  asked  was  of  the  ways 
in  which  the  world  and  the  mind  acted  upon  each 
other.  The  entire  process  recognized  would  have 
been  in  theory  exactly  the  same  if  there  were  ojie 
mind  living  alone  in  the  universe.  At  present  the 
tendency  is  to  conceive  individual  mind  as  a  func- 
tion of  social  life — as  not  capable  of  operating  or 
developing  by  itself,  but  as  requiring  continual 
stimulus  from  social  agencies,  and  finding  its  nutri- 
tion in  social  supplies.  The  idea  of  heredity  has 
made  familiar  the  notion  that  the  equipment  of  the 
individual,  mental  as  well  as  physical,  is  an  inherit- 
ance from  the  race:  a  capital  inherited  by  the 
individual  from  the  past  and  held  in  trust  by  him 
for  the  future.  The  idea  of  evolution  has  made 
familiar  the  notion  that  mind  cannot  be  regarded 
as  an  hidividual,  monopolistic  possession,  but  repre- 


PSYCHOLOGY  OP  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION     91 

sents  the  outworkings  of  the  endeavor  and  thought 
of  humanity;  that  it  is  developed  in  an  environ- 
ment which  is  social  as  well  as  physical,  and  that 
social  needs  and  aims  have  been  most  potent  in 
shaping  it — and  the  chief  difference  between 
savagery  and  civilization  is  not  in  the  naked  nature 
which  each  faces,  but  the  social  heredity  and  social 
medium. 

Studies  of  childhood  have  made  it  equally  appar- 
ent that  this  socially  acquired  inheritance  operates 
in  the  individual  only  under  present  social  stimuli. 
Nature  must  indeed  furnish  its  physical  stimuli 
of  light,  sound,  heat,  etc.,  but  the  significance 
attaching  to  these,  the  interpretation  made  of 
them,  depends  upon  the  ways  in  which  the  society 
in  which  the  child  lives  acts  and  reacts  in  reference 
to  them.  The  bare  physical  stimulus  of  light  is 
not  the  entire  reality;  the  Interpretation  given  to  it 
through  social  activities  and  thinking  confers  upon 
it  its  wealth  of  meaning.  It  is  through  imitation, 
suggestion,  direct  instruction,  and  even  more  indi- 
rect unconscious  tuition,  that  the  child  learns  to 
estimate  and  treat  the  bare  physical  stimuli.  It  is 
through  the  social  agencies  that  he  recapitulates  in 
a  few  short  years  the  progress  which  it  has  taken 
the  race  slow  centuries  to  work  out. 

Educational  practice  has  exhibited  an  uncon- 
scious adaptation  to  and  harmony  with  the  prevail- 
ing psychology;    both  grew  out  of  the  same  soil. 


92  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

\j  Just  as  mind  was  supposed  to  get  its  filling  by  direct 
contact  with  the  world,  so  all  the  needs  of  instruc- 
tion were  thought  to  be  met  by  bringing  the  child 
mind  into  direct  relation  with  various  bodies  of 
external  fact  labeled  geography,  arithmetic,  gram- 
mar, etc.  That  these  classified  sets  of  facts  were 
simply  selections  from  the  social  life  of  the  past 
was  overlooked;  equally  so  that  they  had  been 
generated  out  of  social  situations  and  represented 
the  answers  found  for  social  needs.  fNo  social 
element  was  found  in  the  subject-matter~nor  in  the 
intrinsic  appeal  which  it  made  to  the  child ;  it  was 
located  wholly  outside  in  the  teacher — in  the 
encouragements,  admonitions,  urgings,  and  de\aces 
of  the  instructor  in  getting  the  child's  mind  to  work 
upon  a  material  which  in  itself  was  only  accidea- 
tally  lighted  up  by  any  social  gleam.  ,  It  was  for- 
gotten that  the  maximum  appeal,  and  the  full 
meaning  in  the  life  of  the  child,  could  be  secured 
only  when  the  studies  were  presented,  not  as  bare 
external  studies,  but  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
relation  they  bear  to  the  life  of  society.  It  was 
forgotten  that  to  become  integral  parts  of  the 
child's  conduct  and  character  they  must  be  assimi- 
lated, not  as  mere  items  of  information,  but  as 
organic  parts  of  his  present  needs  and  aims — which 
in  turn  are  social. 
/       In  the  second  place,  the  older^isyxhology-jKasj 

V     psychology  of  knowledge,  of  intellect.     Emotion 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION     93 

and  endeavor, ^occupied  but  an  ^incidental  and 
derivative  place.  Much  was  said  about  sensations 
— pext  to  nothing  about  movements.  TEere  was 
discussion  of  ideas  and  of  whether  they  originated 
in  sensations  or  in  some  innate  mental  faculty; 
but  the  possibility  of  their  origin  in  and  from  the 
needs  of  action  was  ignored.  Their  influence  upon 
conduct,  upon  behavior,  was  regarded  as  an 
external  attachment.  Now  we  beheve  (to  use  the 
words  of  Mr.  James)  that  the  intellect,  the  sphere 
of  sensations  and  ideas,  is  but  a  "middle  depart- 
ment which  we  sometimes  take  to  be  final,  failing 
to  see,  amidst  the  monstrous  diversity  of  the 
length  and  complications  of  the  cogitations  which 
may  fill  it,  that  it  can  have  but  one  essential 
function — the  function  of  defining  the  direction 
which  our  activity,  immediate  or  remote,  shall 
take." 

Here  also  was  a  pre-established  harmony 
between  educational  practice  and  psychological 
theory.  Knowledge  in  the  schools  was  isolated 
and  made  an  end  in  itself.  Facts,  laws,  informa- 
tion have  been  the  staple  of  the  curriculum.  The 
controversy  in  educational  theory  and  practice  was 
between  those  who  relied  more  upon  the  sense 
element  in  knowledge,  upon  contact  with  things, 
upon  object-lessons,  etc.,  and  those  who  empha- 
sized abstract  ideas,  generalizations,  etc. — reason, 
so  called,  but  in  reality  other  people's  ideas  as 


94  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

formulated  in  books.  In  neither  case  was  there  any 
attempt  to  connect  either  the  sense  training  or  the 
logical  operations  wath  the  problems  and  interests 
of  the  life  of  practice.  Here  again  an  educational 
transformation  is  indicated  if  we  are  to  suppose 
that  our  psychological  theories  stand  for  any 
truths  of  life. 

The  third  point  of  contrast  lies  in  the  modern 
conception  of  the  mind  as  essentially  a  process — 
a  process  of  growth,  not  a  fixed  thing.  According 
to  the  older  view  mind  was  mind,  and  that  was 
the  whole  story.  Mind  was  the  same  throughout, 
because  fitted  out  with  the  same  assortment  of 
faculties  whether  in  child  or  adult.  If  any  differ- 
ence was  made  it  was  simply  that  some  of  these 
ready-made  faculties — such  as  memory — came  into 
play  at  an  earlier  time,  while  others,  such  as  judg- 
ing and  inferring,  made  their  appearance  only  after 
the  child,  through  memorizing  drills,  had  been 
reduced  to  complete  dependence  upon  the  thought 
of  others.  The  only  important  difference  that  was 
recognized  was  one  of  quantity,  of  amount.  The 
boy  was  a  little  man  and  his  mind  was  a  little 
mind — in  everything  but  the  size  the  same  as  that 
of  the  adult,  having  its  own  ready-furnished  equip- 
ment of  faculties  of  attention,  memory,  etc.  Now 
we  believe  in  the  mind  as  a  growing  affair,  and 
hence  as  essentially  changing,  presenting  dis- 
tinctive phases  of  capacity  and  interest  at  different 


PSYCHOLOGY  OP  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION     95 

periods.  These  are  all  one  and  the  same  in  the 
sense  of  continuity  of  life,  but  all  different,  in  that 
each  has  its  own  distinctive  claims  and  offices. 
"First  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  and  then  the  full 
corn  in  the  ear." 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  overstate  the  agreement 
of  education  and  psychology'  at  this  point.  The 
course  of  study  was  thoroughly,  even  if  uncon- 
sciously, controlled  by  the  assumption "  that  since 
mind  and  its  faculties  are  the  same  throughout,  the 
subject-matter  of  the  adult,  logically  arranged 
facts  and  principles,  is  the  natural  "study"  of  the 
child — simplified  and  made  easier  of  course,  since 
,_the  wind  must  be  tempered  to  the  shorn  lamb.i 
iThe  outcome  was  the  traditional  course  of  study  in 
jwhich  again  child  and  adult  minds  are  absolutely 
I  identified,  except  as  regards  the  mere  matter  of 
i_amount  or  quantity  of  power.  The  entire  range 
o'  the  universe  is  first  subdivided  into  sections 
called  studies;  then  each  one  of  the«^c  studies  is 
broken  up  into  bits,  and  some  one  bit  assigned  to  a 
certain  year  of  the  course.  No  order  of  develop- 
ment was  recognized — it  was  enough  that  the 
earlier  parts  were  made  easier  than  the  later.  To 
use  the  pertinent  illustration  of  ]Mr.  W.  S.  Jackman 
in  stating  the  absurdity  of  this  sort  of  curriculum : 
"  It  must  seem  to  geography  teachers  that  Heaven 
smiled  on  them  when  it  ordained  but  four  or  five 
continents,  because  starting  m  far  enough  along 


96  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

the  course  it  was  so  easy,  that  it  really  seemed  to  be 
natural,  to  give  one  continent  to  each  grade,  and 
then  come  out  right  in  the  eight  years." 

If  once  more  we  are  in  earnest  with  the  idea  of 
mind  as  growth,  this  growth  carrying  with  it 
typical  features  distinctive  of  its  various  stages,  it 
is  clear  that  an  educational  transformation  is  again 
indicated.  It  is  clear  that  the  selection  and  grad- 
ing of  material  in  the  course  of  study  must  be  done 
with  reference  to  proper  nutrition  of  the  dominant 
directions  of  activity  in  a  given  period,  not  with 
reference  to  chopped-up  sections  of  a  ready-made 
universe  of  knowledge. 

It  is,  of  course,  comparatively  easy  to  lay  down 
general  propositions  like  the  foregoing;  easy  to  use 
them  to  criticize  existing  school  conditions;  easy 
by  means  of  them  to  urge  the  necessity  of  some- 
thing different.  But  art  is  long.  The  difficulty 
is  in  carrying  such  conceptions  into  effect — in  seeing 
just  what  materials  and  methods,  in  what  propor- 
tion and  arrangement,  are  available  and  helpful 
at  a  given  time.  Here  again  we  must  fall  back 
upon  the  idea  of  the  laboratory.  There  is  no 
answer  in  advance  to  such  questions  as  these. 
Tradition  does  not  give  it  because  tradition  is 
founded  upon  a  radically  different  psychology. 
Mere  reasoning  cannot  give  it  because  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  fact.  It  is  only  by  trying  that  such  things 
can   l)e   found   out.     To   refuse   to   try,    to   stick 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION     97 

blindly  to  tradition,  because  the  search  for  the 
truth  involves  experimentation  in  the  region  of 
the  unknown,  is  to  refuse  the  only  step  which  can 
introduce  rational  conviction  into  education. 

Hence  the  following  statement  simply  reports 
various  lines  of  inquiry  started  during  the  last  five 
years,  with  some  of  the  results  more  recently  indi- 
cated. These  results  can,  of  course,  make  no 
claim  to  be  other  than  tentative,  excepting  in  so  far 
as  a  more  definite  consciousness  of  what  the  prob- 
lems are,  clearing  the  way  for  more  intelligent 
action  in  the  future,  is  a  definitive  advance.  It 
should  also  be  stated  that  practically  it  has  not  as 
yet  been  possible,  in  many  cases,  to  act  adequately 
upon  the  best  ideas  obtained,  because  of  adminis- 
trative difficulties,  due  to  lack  of  funds — difficulties 
centering  in  the  lack  of  a  proper  building  and 
appHances,  and  in  inability  to  pay  the  amounts 
necessary  to  secure  the  complete  time  of  teachers 
in  some  important  lines.  Indeed,  with  the  growth 
of  the  school  in  numbers,  and  in  the  age  and  ma- 
turity of  pupils,  it  is  becoming  a  grave  question  how 
long  it  is  fair  to  the  experiment  to  carry  it  on 
without  more  adequate  faciUties. 

In  coming  now  to  speak  of  the  educational 
answers  which  have  been  sought  for  the  psycho- 
logical hypotheses,  it  is  convenient  to  start  from 
the  matter  of  the  stages  of  growth.  The  first  stage 
(found  in  the  child  say  of  from  four  to  eight  years 


g&  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

of  age)  is  characterized  by  directness  of  social 
and  personal  interests,  and  by  directness  and 
promptness  of  relationship  between  impressions, 
ideas,  and  action.  The  demand  for  a  motor  outlet 
for  expression  is  urgent  and  immediate.  Hence 
the  subject-matter  for  these  years  is  selected  from 
phases  of  hfe  entering  into  the  child's  own  social 
surroundings,  and,  as  far  as  may  be,  capable  of 
reproduction  by  him  in  something  approaching 
social  form — in  play,  games,  occupations,  or  minia- 
ture industrial  arts,  stories,  pictorial  imagination, 
and  conversation.  At  hrst  the  material  is  such  as 
lies  nearest  the  child  himself,  the  family  life  and  its 
neighborhood  setting;  it  then  goes  on  to  something 
shghtly  more  remote,  social  occupations  (especially 
those  having  to  do  with  the  interdependence* of 
city  and  country  life),  and  then  extends  itself  to 
the  historical  evolution  of  typical  occupations  and 
of  the  social  forms  connected  with  them.  The 
material  is  not  presented  as  lessons,  as  something 
to  be  learned,  but  rather  as  something  to  be  taken 
up  into  the  child's  own  experience,  through  his 
own  activities,  in  weaving,  cooking,  shopwork, 
modeling,  dramatic  plays,  conversation,  discussion, 
story-telling,  etc.  These  in  turn  are  direct  agen- 
cies. They  are  forms  of  motor  or  expressive 
activity.  They  are  emphasized  so  as  to  dominate 
the  school  program,  in  order  that  the  intimate 
connection  between  knowing  and  doing,  so  char- 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION     99 

acteristic  of  this  period  of  child  life,  may  be  main- 
tained. The  aim,  then,  is  not  for  the  child  to  go  to 
school  as  a  place  apart,  but  rather  in  the  school  so 
to  recapitulate  typical  phases  of  his  experience 
outside  of  school,  as  to  enlarge,  enrich,  and  gradu- 
ally formulate  it. 

In  the  second  period,  extending  from  eight  or 
nine  to  eleven  or  twelve,  the  aim  is  to  recognize  and 
respond  to  the  change  which  comes  into  the  child 
from  his  growing  sense  of  the  possibility  of  more 
permanent  and  objective  results  and  of  the  neces- 
sity for  the  control  of  agencies  for  the  skill  necessary 
to  reach  these  results.  When  the  child  recognizes 
distinct  and  enduring  ends  which  stand  out  and 
demand  attention  on  their  own  account,  the  previ- 
ous vague  and  fluid  unity  of  life  is  broken  up.  The 
mere  play  of  activity  no  longer  directly  sarisfies. 
It  must  be  felt  to  accomplish  something — to  lead 
up  to  a  definite  and  abiding  outcome.  Hence  the 
recognition  of  rules  of  acrion — that  is,  of  regular 
means  appropriate  to  reaching  permanent  results — 
and  of  the  value  of  mastering  special  processes  so 
as  to  give  skill  in  their  use. 

Hence,  on  the  educational  side,  the  problem  is,  as 
regards  the  subject-matter,  to  diflerentiate  the 
vague  unity  of  experience  into  characteristic 
typical  phases,  selecting  such  as  clearly  illustrate 
the  importance  to  mankind  of  command  over 
specific    agencies   and    methods   of    thought   and 


lOO  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

action  in  realizing  its  highest  aims.l  The  problem 
on  the  side  of  method  is  an  analogous  one :  to  bring 
the  child  to  recognize  the  necessity  of  a  similar 
development  within  himself. — the  need  of  securing 
for  himself  practical  and  intellectual  control  of 
such  methods  of  work  and  inquiry  as  will  enable 
him  to  realize  results  for  himself. 

On  the  more  direct  social  side,  American  history 
(especially  that  of  the  period  of  colonization)  is 
selected  as  furnishing  a  typical  example  of  patience, 
courage,  ingenuity,  and  continual  judgment  in 
adapting  means  to  ends,  even  in  the  face  of  great 
hazard  and  obstacle;  while  the  material  itself  is 
so  definite,  vivid,  and  human  as  to  come  directly 
within  the  range  of  the  child's  representative  and 
constructive  imagination  and  thus  becomes,  vicaji- 
ously  at  least,  a  part  of  his  own  expanding  con- 
sciousness. Since  the  aim  is  not  "covering  the 
ground,"  but  knowledge  of  social  processes  used 
to  secure  social  results,  no  attempt  is  made  to  go 
over  the  entire  history,  in  chronological  order,  of 
America.  Rather  a  series  of  t>'pes  is  taken  up: 
Chicago  and  the  northwestern  Mississippi  valley; 
Virginia,  New  York,  and  the  Puritans  and  Pilgrims 
in  New  England.  The  aim  is  to  present  a  variety 
of  climatic  and  local  conditions,  to  show  the  differ- 
ent sorts  of  obstacles  and  helps  that  people  found, 
and  a  variety  of  historic  traditions  and  customs 
and  purposes  of  different  people. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION     lOI 

The  method  involves  presentation  of  a  large 
amount  of  detail,  of  minutiae  of  surroundings, 
tools,  clothing,  household  utensils,  foods,  modes 
of  living  day  by  day,  so  that  the  child  can  repro- 
duce the  material  as  life,  not  as  mere  historic  in- 
formation. In  this  way,  social  processes  and 
results  become  realities.  Moreover,  to  the  personal 
and  dramatic  identification  of  the  child  with  the 
social  hfe  studied,  characteristic  of  the  earlier 
period,  there  now  supervenes  an  intellectual  identi- 
fication—the child  puts  himseK  at  the  standpoint 
of  the  problems  that  have  to  be  met  and  rediscovers, 
so  far  as  may  be,  ways  of  meeting  them. 

The  general  standpoint — the  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends — controls  also  the  work  in  science. 
For  purposes  of  convenience,  this  may  be  regarded 
as  now  differentiated  into  two  sides — the  geograph- 
ical and  the  experimental.  Since,  as  just  stated, 
the  history  work  depends  upon  an  appreciation  of 
the  natural  enviroimient  as  affording  resources 
and  presenting  urgent  problems,  considerable 
attention  is  paid  to  the  physiography,  mountains, 
rivers,  plains,  and  lines  of  natural  travel  and 
exchange,  flora  and  fauna  of  each  of  the  colonies. 
This  is  connected  with  field  excursions  in  order 
that  the  child  may  be  able  to  supply  from  observa- 
tion, as  far  as  possible,  the  data  to  be  used  by  con- 
structive imagination,  in  reproducing  more  remote 
environments. 


I02  TEE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

The  experimental  side  devotes  itself  to  a  study 
of  processes  which  yield  typical  results  of  value 
to  men.  The  activity  of  the  child  in  the  earlier 
period  is  directly  productive,  rather  than  investi- 
gative. His  experiments  are  modes  of  active 
doing — almost  as  much  so  as  his  play  and  games. 
Later  he  tries  to  find  out  how  various  materials 
or  agencies  are  manipulated  in  order  to  give  cer- 
tain results.  It  is  thus  clearly  distinguished  from 
experimentation  in  the  scientific  sense — such  as 
is  appropriate  to  the  secondary  period — where  the 
aim  is  the  discovery  of  facts  and  verification  of 
principles.  Since  the  practical  interest  predomi- 
nates, it  is  a  study  of  applied  science  rather  than  of 
pure  science.  For  instance,  processes  are  selected 
found  to  have  been  of  importance  in  colonial  lifip — 
bleaching,  dyeing,  soap  and  candle-making,  manu- 
facture of  pewter  dishes,  making  of  cider  and  vine- 
gar, leading  to  some  study  of  chemical  agencies, 
of  oils,  fats,  elementary  metallurgy.  "Physics" 
is  commenced  from  the  same  apphed  standpoint. 
A  study  is  made  of  the  use  and  transfer  of  energy 
in  the  spiiming-wheel  and  looms;  ever^-day  uses 
of  mechanical  principles  are  taken  up — in  locks, 
scales,  etc.,  going  on  later  to  electric  appHances 
and  devices — bells,  the  telegraph,  etc. 

The  relation  of  means  to.  ciids  is  emphasized  also 
in  other  lines  of  work.  In  art  attention  is  given 
to  practical  questions  of  perspective,  of  proportion 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION     103 

of  spaces  and  masses,  balance,  effect  of  color 
combinations  and  contrasts,  etc.  In  cooking,  the 
principles  of  food-composition  and  of  effects  of 
various  agencies  upon  these  elements  are  taken 
up,  so  that  the  children  may  deduce,  as  far  as 
possible,  their  own  rules.  In  sewing,  methods  of 
cutting,  fitting  (as  applied  to  dolls'  clotliing) 
come  up,  and  later  on  the  technical  sequence  of 
stitches,  etc. 

It  is  clear  that  with  the  increasing  differentia- 
tion of  lines  of  work  and  interest,  leading  to  greater 
individuality  and  independence  in  various  studies, 
great  care  must  be  taken  to  find  the  balance 
between,  on  one  side,  undue  separation  and  isola- 
tion, and,  on  the  other,  a  miscellaneous  and  casual 
attention  to  a  large  number  of  topics,  without 
adequate  emphasis  and  distinctiveness  to  any. 
The  first  principle  makes  work  mechanical  and 
formal,  divorces  it  from  the  life-experience  of  the 
child  and  from  effective  influence  upon  conduct. 
The  second  makes  it  scrappy  and  vague  and  leaves 
the  child  without  defijiite  command  of  his  own 
powers  or  clear  consciousness  of  purposes.  It  is 
perhaps  only  in  the  present  year  that  the  specific 
principle  of  the  conscious  relation  of  means  to  ends 
has  emerged  as  the  unifying  principle  of  this  period ; 
and  it  is  hoped  that  emphasis  of  this  in  all  lines  of 
work  will  have  a  decidedly  cumulative  and  unifying 
effect  upon  the  child's  development. 


I04  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

Nothing  has  been  said,  as  yet,  of  one  of  the  most 
important  agencies  or  means  in  extending  and 
controlling  experience — command  of  the  social  or 
conventional  symbols — symbols  of  lan^age.  in- 
cluding those  of  quanlity.  The  importance  of 
these  instrumentalities  is  so  great  that  the  tra- 
ditional or  three  R's  curriculum  is  based  upon  them 
— from  60  to  80  per  cent  of  the  time  program  of  the 
first  four  or  five  years  of  elementary  schools  being 
devoted  to  them,  the  smaller  figure  representing 
selected  rather  than  average  schools. 

These  subjects  are  social  in  a  double  sense. 
They  represent  the  tools  which  society  has  evolved 
in  the  past  as  the  instruments  of  its  intellectual 
pursuits.  They  represent  the  keys  which  will 
unlock  to  the  child  the  wealth  of  social  capital 
which  lies  beyond  the  possible  range  of  his  limited 
individual  experience.  While  these  two  points  of 
view  must  always  give  these  arts  a  highly  impor- 
tant place  in  education,  they  also  make  it  neces- 
sary that  certain  conditions  should  be  observed  in 
their  introduction  and  use.  In  a  wholesale  and 
direct  application  of  the  studies  no  account  is 
taken  of  these  conditions.  The  chief  problem  at 
present  relating  to  the  three  R's  is  recognition  of 
these  conditions  and  the  adaptation  of  work  to 
them. 

The  conditions  may  be  reduced  to  two:  (i)  The 
need  that  the  child  shall  have  in  his  own  personal 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION     105 

and  vital  experience  a  varied  background  of  con- 
tact and  acquaintance  with  realities,  social  and 
physical.  This  is  necessary  to  prevent  symbols 
from  becoming  a  purely  second-hand  and  con- 
ventional substitute  for  reality.  {2)  The  need  that 
the  more  ordinary,  direct,  and  personal  experience 
of  the  child  shall  furnish  problems,  motives,  and 
interests  that  necessitate  recourse  to  books  for  their 
solution,  satisfaction,  and  pursuit.  Otherwise,  the 
child  approaches  the  book  without  intellectual 
hunger,  without  alertness,  without  a  questioning 
attitude,  and  the  result  is  the  one  so  deplorably 
common:  such  abject  dependence  upon  books  as 
weakens  and  cripples  vigor  of  thought  and  inquiry, 
combined  with  reading  for  mere  random  stimula- 
tion of  fancy,  emotional  indulgence,  and  flight  from 
the  world  of  reality  into  a  make-belief  land. 

The  problem  here  is  then  (i)  to  furnish  the  child 
with  a  sufficiently  large  amount  of  personal  activity 
in  occupations,  expression,  conversation,  con- 
struction, and  experimentation,  so  that  his  indi- 
viduality, moral  and  intellectual,  shall  not  be 
swamped  by  a  disproportionate  amount  of  the 
experience  of  others  to  which  books  introduce 
him;  and  (2)  so  to  conduct  this  more  direct  experi- 
ence as  to  make  the  child  feel  the  need  of  resort  to 
and  command  of  the  traditional  social  tools — 
furnish  him  with  motives  and  make  his  recourse  to 
them  intelligent,  an  addition  to  his  powers,  instead 


io6  TEE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

of  a  serv'ile  dependency.  When  this  problem  shall 
be  solved,  work  in  language,  literature,  and  number 
will  not  be  a  combination  of  mechanical  drill, 
formal  analysis,  and  appeal,  even  if  unconscious, 
to  sensational  interests;  and  there  will  not  be  the 
slightest  reason  to  fear  that  books  and  all  that 
relates  to  them  will  not  take  the  important  place 
to  which  they  are  entitled. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  problem  is 
not  yet  solved.  The  common  complaints  that 
children's  progress  in  these  traditional  school 
studies  is  sacrificed  to  the  newer  subjects 
that  have  come  into  the  curriculum  is  suffi- 
cient evidence  that  the  exact  balance  is  not  yet 
struck.  The  experience  thus  far  in  the  school, 
even  if  not  demonstrative,  indicates  the  following 
probable  results:  (i)  the  more  direct  modes  of 
activity,  constructive  and  occupation  work,  scien- 
tific observation,  experimentation,  etc.,  present 
plenty  of  opportunities  and  occasions  for  the 
necessary  use  of  reading,  writing  (and  spelhng), 
and  number  work.  These  things  may  be  intro- 
duced, then,  not  as  isolated  studies,  but  as  organic 
outgrowths  of  the  child's  experience.  The  prob- 
lem is,  in  a  systematic  and  progressive  way,  to 
take  advantage  oi  chese  occasions.  (2)  The 
additional  vitality  and  meaning  which  these 
studies  thus  secure  make  possible  a  very  con- 
siderable reduction  of  the  time  ordinarily  devoted 


PSYCHOLOGY  OP  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION     107 

to  them.  (3)  The  final  use  of  the  symbols,  whether 
in  reading,  calculation,  or  composition,  is  more 
intelligent,  less  mechanical;  more  active,  less 
passively  receptive;  more  an  increase  of  power, 
less  a  mere  mode  of  enjoyment. 

On  the  other  hand,  increasing  experience  seems 
to  make  clear  the  following  points:  (i)  that  it  is 
possible,  in  the  early  years,  to  appeal,  in  teaching 
the  recognition  and  use  of  symbols,  to  the  child's 
power  of  production  and  creation;  as  much  so  in 
principle  as  in  other  lines  of  work  seemingly  much 
more  direct,  and  that  there  is  the  advantage  of  a 
limited  and  definite  result  by  which  the  child  may 
measure  his  progress.  (2)  Failure  sufficiently  to 
take  account  of  this  fact  resulted  in  an  undue 
postponement  of  some  phases  of  these  lines  of 
work,  with  the  effect  that  the  child,  having  pro- 
gressed to  a  more  advanced  plane  intellectually, 
feels  what  earlier  might  have  been  a  form  of  power 
and  creation  to  be  an  irksome  task.  (3)  There  is 
a  demand  for  periodic  concentration  and  alterna- 
tion in  the  school  program  of  the  time  devoted  to 
these  studies — and  of  all  studies  where  mastery  of 
technique  or  special  method  is  advisable.  That  is  to 
say,  instead  of  carrying  all  subjects  simultaneously 
and  at  an  equal  pace  upon  the  program,  at  times 
one  must  be  brought  to  the  foreground  and  others 
relegated  to  the  background,  until  the  child  is 
brought  to  the  point  of  recognizing  that  he  has  a 


lo8  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

power  or  skill  which  he  can  now  go  ahead  and  use 
independently. 

The  third  period  of  elementary  education  is 
upon  the  borderland  of  secondary.  It  comes  when 
the  child  has  a  sufficient  acquaintance  of  a  fairly 
direct  sort  with  various  forms  of  reality  and  modes 
of  activity;  and  when  he  has  sufficiently  mastered 
the  methods,  the  tools  of  thought,  inquiry,  and 
activity,  appropriate  to  various  phases  of  experi- 
ence, to  be  able  profitably  to  specialize  upon 
distinctive  studies  and  arts  for  technical  and  intel- 
lectual aims.  While  the  school  has  a  number  of 
children  who  are  in  this  period,  the  school  has  not, 
of  course,  been  in  existence  long  enough  so  that 
any  typical  inferences  can  be  safely  drawn.  There 
certainly  seems  to  be  reason  to  hope,  however,  that 
with  the  consciousness  of  difficulties,  needs,  and 
resources  gained  in  the  experience  of  the  last  five 
years,  children  can  be  brought  to  and  through  this 
period  without  sacrifice  of  thoroughness,  mental 
discipline,  or  command  of  technical  tools  of  learn- 
ing, and  with  a  positive  enlargement  of  life,  and  a 
wider,  freer,  and  more  open  outlook  upon  it. 


FROEBEL'S  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES 


FROEBEL'S  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES 

One  of  the  traditions  of  the  Elementary  School 
of  the  University  of  Chicago  is  of  a  visitor  who,  in 
its  early  days,  called  to  see  the  kindergarten.  On 
being  told  that  the  school  had  not  as  yet  estab- 
lished one,  she  asked  if  there  were  not  singing, 
drawing,  manual  training,  plays  and  dramatiza- 
tions, and  attention  to  the  children's  social  rela- 
tions. When  her  questions  were  answered  in  the 
affirmative,  she  remarked,  both  triumphantly  and 
indignantly,  that  that  was  what  she  understood 
by  a  kindergarten,  and  that  she  did  not  know 
what  was  meant  by  saying  that  the  school  had  no 
kindergarten.  The  remark  was  perhaps  justified 
in  spirit,  if  not  in  letter.  At  aU  events,  it  suggests 
that  in  a  certain  sense  the  school  endeavors 
throughout  its  whole  course — now  including  chil- 
dren between  four  and  thirteen — to  carry  into  effect 
certain  principles  which  Froebel  was  perhaps  the 
first  consciously  to  set  forth.  Speaking  still  in 
general,  these  principles  are: 

I.  That  the  primary  business  of  school  is  to 
train  children  in  co-operative  and  mutually 
helpful  living;  to  foster  in  them  the  conscious- 
ness of  mutual  interdependence;  and  to  help  them 


112  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

practically  in  making  the  adjustments   that  will 
carry  this  spirit  into  overt  deeds. 

2.  That  the  primary  root  of  all  educative  activity 
is  in  the  instinctive,  impulsive  attitudes  and 
activities  of  the  child,  and  not  in  the  presentation 
and  application  of  external  material,  whether 
through  the  ideas  of  others  or  through  the  senses; 
and  that,  accordingly,  numberless  spontaneous 
activities  of  children,  plays,  games,  mimic  efforts, 
even  the  apparently  meaningless  motions  of 
infants — exhibitions  previously  ignored  as  trixaal, 
futile,  or  even  condemned  as  positively  evil — are 
capable  of  educational  use;  nay,  are  the  foundation- 
stones  of  educational  method. 

3.  That  these  individual  tendencies  and  activi- 
ties are  organized  and  directed  through  the  uses 
made  of  them  in  keeping  up  the  co-operative  living 
already  spoken  of;  taking  advantage  of  them  to 
reproduce  on  the  child's  plane  the  typical  doings 
and  occupations  of  the  larger,  maturer  society 
into  which  he  is  finally  to  go  forth;  and  that  it  is 
through  production  and  creative  use  that  valuable 
knowledge  is  secured  and  clinched. 

So  far  as  these  statements  correctly  represent 
Froebel's  educational  philosophy,  the  School  should 
be  regarded  as  its  exponent.  An  attempt  is  mak- 
ing to  act  upon  them  with  as  much  faith  and 
sincerity  in  their  application  to  children  of  twelve 
as  to  children  of  four.     This  attempt,  however,  to 


FROEBEL'S  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES        II3 

assume  what  might  be  called  the  kindergarten 
attitude  throughout  the  whole  school  makes  neces- 
sary certain  modifications  of  the  work  done  in 
what  is  more  technically  known  as  the  kinder- 
garten period — that  is,  with  the  children  between 
the  ages  of  four  and  six.  It  is  necessary  only  to 
state  reasons  for  believing  that  in  spite  of  the 
apparently  radical  character  of  some  of  them  they 
are  true  to  the  spirit  of  Froebel. 

AS   REGARDS   PLAY   AXD   GAMES 

Play  is  not  to  be  identified  with  anything  which 
the  child  externally  does.  It  rather  designates  his 
mental  attitude  in  its  entirety  and  in  its  unity. 
It  is  the  free  play,  the  interplay,  of  all  the  child's 
powers,  thoughts,  and  physical  movements,  m 
embodying,  in  a  satisfying  form,  his  own  images 
and  interests.  Negatively,  it  is  freedom  from 
economic  pressure — the  necessities  of  getting  a 
living  and  supporting  others — and  from  the  fixed 
responsibilities  attaching  to  the  special  callings  of 
the  adult.  Positively,  it  means  that  the  supreme 
end  of  the  child  is  fulness  of  growth — fulness  of  re- 
alization of  his  budding  powers,  a  realization  which 
continually  carries  him  on  from  one  plane  to  another. 

This  is  a  very  general  statement,  and  taken  in 
its  generality,  is  so  vague  as  to  be  innocent  of  prac- 
tical bearing.  Its  significance  in  detail,  in  applica- 
tion, however,  means  the  possibility,  and  in  many 


114  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

respects  the  necessity,  of  quite  a  radical  change  of 
kindergarten  procedure.  To  state  it  baldly,  the 
fact  that  "play"  denotes  the  psychological  attitude 
of  the  child,  not  his  outward  performances,  means 
complete  emancipation  from  the  necessity  of 
following  any  given  or  prescribed  system,  or 
sequence  of  gifts,  plays,  or  occupations.  The 
judicious  teacher  will  certainly  look  for  suggestions 
to  the  activities  mentioned  by  Froebel  (in  his 
Mother-Flay  and  elsewhere),  and  to  liiose  set  forth 
in  such  minute  detail  by  his  disciples;  but  she  will 
also  remember  that  the  principle  of  play  requires 
her  carefully  to  investigate  and  criticize  these 
things,  and  decide  whether  they  are  really  activi- 
ties for  her  own  children,  or  just  things  wliich  may 
have  been  vital  in  the  past  to  children  liv-ing  in 
different  social  conditions.  So  far  as  occupations, 
games,  etc.,  simply  perpetuate  those  of  Froebel  and 
his  earlier  disciples,  it  may  fairly  be  said  that  in 
many  respects  the  presumption  is  against  them — 
the  presumption  is  that  in  the  worship  of  the 
external  doings  discussed  by  Froebel  we  have 
ceased  to  be  loyal  to  his  principle. 

The  teacher  must  be  absolutely  free  to  get 
suggestions  from  any  and  from  every  source,  asking 
herself  but  these  two  questions:  Will  the  proposed 
mode  of  play  appeal  to  the  child  as  his  own  ?  Is  it 
something  of  which  he  has  the  instinctive  roots  in 
himself,    and    which    will    mature    the    capacities 


FROEBEUS  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES        115 

that  are  struggling  for  manifestation  in  him  ? 
And  again:  Will  the  proposed  activity  give  that 
sort  of  expression  to  these  impulses  that  will  carry 
the  child  on  to  a  higher  plane  of  consciousness  and 
action,  instead  of  merely  exciting  him  and  then 
leaving  him  just  where  he  was  before,  plus  a 
certain  amount  of  nervous  exhaustion  and  appetite 
for  more  excitation  in  the  future  ? 

There  is  every  evidence  that  Froebel  studied 
carefully — inductively  we  might  now  say — the 
children's  plays  of  his  own  time,  and  the  games 
which  mothers  played  with  their  infants.  He  also 
took  great  pains — ^as  in  his  Mother-Play — to  point 
out  that  certain  principles  of  large  import  were 
involved.  He  had  to  bring  his  generation  to 
consciousness  of  the  fact  that  these  things  were 
not  merely  trivial  and  childish  because  done  by 
children,  but  were  essential  factors  in  their  growth. 
But  I  do  not  see  the  slightest  evidence  that  he  sup- 
posed that  just  these  plays,  and  only  these  plays, 
had  meaning,  or  that  his  philosophic  explanation 
had  any  motive  beyond  that  just  suggested.  On 
the  contrary,  I  believe  that  he  expected  his  fol- 
lowers to  exhibit  their  following  by  continuing 
his  own  study  of  contemporary  conditions  and 
activities,  rather  than  by  literally  adhering  to  the 
plays  he  had  collected.  Moreover,  it  is  hardly 
Hkely  that  Froebel  himself  would  contend  that  in 
his  interpretation  of  these  games  he  did  more  than 


Il6  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

take  advantage  of  the  best  psychological  and 
philosophical  insight  available  to  him  at  the  time; 
and  we  may  suppose  that  he  would  have  been  the 
first  to  welcome  the  growth  of  a  better  and  more 
extensive  psychology  (whether  general,  experi- 
mental, or  as  child  study),  and  would  avail  himself 
of  its  results  to  reinterpret  the  activities,  to  dis- 
cuss them  more  critically,  going  from  the  new 
standpoint  into  the  reasons  that  make  tliem  educa- 
tionally valuable. 

SYMBOLISM 

It  must  be  remembered  that  much  of  Froebel's 
symbolism  is  the  product  of  two  peculiar  conditions 
of  his  own  life  and  work.  In  the  first  place,  on 
account  of  inadequate  knowledge  at  that  time  of  the 
physiological  and  psychological  facts  and  principles 
of  child  growth,  he  was  often  forced  to  resort  to 
strained  and  artificial  explanations  of  the  value 
attaching  to  the  plays,  etc.  To  the  impartial 
observer  it  is  obvious  that  many  of  his  statements 
are  cumbrous  and  far-fetched,  giving  abstract 
philosophical  reasons  for  matters  that  may  now 
receive  a  simple,  everyday  formulation.  In  the 
second  place,  the  general  political  and  social  con- 
ditions of  Germany  were  such  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  conceive  continuity  between  the  free,  co- 
operative social  life  of  the  kindergarten  and  that  of 
the  world  outside.    Accordingly ,  he  could  not  regard 


FROEBEL'S  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES        117 

the  "occupations"  of  the  schoolroom  as  literal 
reproductions  of  the  ethical  principles  involved  in 
community  life — the  latter  were  often  too  restricted 
and  authoritative  to  serve  as  worthy  models. 
Accordingly  he  was  compelled  to  think  of  them 
as  symbolic  of  abstract  ethical  and  philosophical 
principles.  There  certainly  is  change  enough  and 
progress  enough  in  the  social  conditions  of  the 
United  States  of  today,  as  compared  with  those 
of  the  Germany  of  his  day,  to  justify  making 
kindergarten  activities  more  natural,  more  direct, 
and  more  real  representations  of  current  life  than 
Froebel's  disciples  have  done.  Even  as  it  is,  the 
disparity  of  Froebel's  philosophy  with  German 
political  ideals  has  made  the  authorities  in  Germany 
suspicious  of  the  kindergarten,  and  has  been  un- 
doubtedly one  force  operating  in  transforming  its 
social  simplicity  into  an  involved  intellectual 
technique. 

IMAGINATION   AND   PLAY 

An  excessive  emphasis  on  symbolism  is  sure  to 
influence  the  treatment  of  imagination.  It  is  of 
course  true  that  a  little  child  lives  in  a  world  of 
imagination.  In  one  sense,  he  can  only  ''make 
believe."  His  activities  represent  or  stand  for  the 
life  that  he  sees  going  on  around  him.  Because 
they  are  thus  representative  they  may  be  termed 
symbolic,  but  it  should  be  remembered  that  this 


Ii8  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

make-believe  or  symbolism  has  reference  to  the 
activities  suggested.  Unless  they  are,  to  the  child, 
as  real  and  defijdte  as  the  adult's  activities  are  to 
him,  the  inevitable  result  is  artificiality,  nervous 
strain,  and  either  physical  and  emotional  excite- 
ment or  else  deadening  of  powers. 

There  has  been  a  curious,  almost  unaccountable, 
tendency  in  the  kindergarten  to  assume  that 
because  the  value  of  the  activity  lies  in  what  it 
stands  for  to  the  child,  therefore  the  materials  used 
must  be  as  artificial  as  possible,  and  that  one  must 
keep  carefully  away  from  real  things  and  real  acts 
on  the  part  of  the  child.  Thus  one  hears  of  garden- 
ing activities  which  are  carried  on  by  sprinkling 
grains  of  sand  for  seeds;  the  child  sweeps  and  dusts 
a  make-believe  room  with  make-believe  brooms  and 
cloths;  he  sets  a  table  using  only  paper  cut  in  the 
flat  (and  even  then  cut  with  reference  to  geometric 
design,  rather  then  to  dishes),  instead  of  toy  tea 
things  with  which  the  child  outside  of  the  kinder- 
garten plays.  Dolls,  toy  locomotives,  and  trains 
of  cars,  etc.,  are  tabooed  as  altogether  too  grossly 
real — and  hence  not  cultivating  the  child's  imagi- 
nation. 

All  this  is  surely  mere  superstition.  The  imagi- 
native play  of  the  child's  mind  comes  through  the 
cluster  of  suggestions,  reminiscences,  and  antici- 
pations that  gather  about  the  thmgs  he  uses. 
The  more  natural  and  straightforward  these  are. 


FROEBEL'S  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES       119 

the  more  definite  basis  there  is  for  calling  up  and 
holding  together  all  the  allied  suggestions  which 
make  his  imaginative  play  really  representative. 
The  simple  cooking,  dishwashing,  dusting,  etc., 
which  children  do  are  no  more  prosaic  or  utihtarian 
to  them  than  would  be,  say,  the  game  of  the  Five 
Knights.  To  the  children  these  occupations  are 
surcharged  with  a  sense  of  the  mysterious  values 
that  attach  to  whatever  their  elders  are  concerned 
with.  The  materials,  then,  must  be  as  "real," 
as  direct  and  straightforward,  as  opportunity 
permits. 

But  the  principle  does  not  end  here — the  reality 
symbolized  must  also  lie  within  the  capacities  of 
the  child's  own  appreciation.  It  is  sometimes 
thought  the  use  of  the  imagination  is  profitable  in 
the  degree  it  stands  for  very  remote  metaphysical 
and  spiritual  principles.  In  the  great  majority  of 
such  cases  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  adult  deceives 
himself.  He  is  conscious  of  both  the  reality  and 
the  symbol,  and  hence  of  the  relation  between 
them.  But  since  the  truth  or  reality  represented 
is  far  beyond  the  reach  of  the  child,  the  supposed 
symbol  is  not  a  sjrmbol  to  him  at  all.  It  is  simply 
a  positive  thing  on  its  own  account.  Practically 
about  all  he  gets  out  of  it  is  its  own  physical  and 
sensational  meaning,  plus,  very  often,  a  ghb  facility 
in  phrases  and  attitudes  that  he  learns  are  expected 
of  him   by   the   teacher — without,   however,   any 


I20  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

mental  counterpart.  We  often  teach  insincerity, 
and  instil  sentimentalism,  and  foster  sensationalism 
when  we  think  we  are  teaching  spiritual  truths  by 
means  of  symbols.  The  realities  reproduced, 
therefore,  by  the  child  should  be  of  as  familiar, 
direct,  and  real  a  character  as  possible.  It  is 
largely  for  this  reason  that  in  the  kindergarten 
of  our  School  the  work  centers  so  much  about  the 
reproduction  of  home  and  neighborhood  life 
This  brings  us  to  the  topic  of 

SUBJECT-MATTER 

The  home  life  in  its  setting  of  house,  furniture, 
utensils,  etc.,  together  with  the  occupations  carried 
on  in  the  home,  offers,  accordingly,  material  which 
is  in  a  direct  and  real  relationship  to  the  child,  and 
which  he  naturally  tends  to  reproduce  in  imagina- 
tive form.  It  is  also  sufhciently  full  of  ethical 
relations  and  suggestive  of  moral  duties  to  afford 
plenty  of  food  for  the  child  on  his  moral  side.  The 
program  is  comparatively  unambitious  compared 
with  that  of  many  kindergartens,  but  it  may  be 
questioned  whether  there  are  not  certain  positive 
advantages  in  this  limitation  of  the  subject-matter. 
When  much  ground  is  covered  (the  work  going  over, 
say,  industrial  society,  army,  church,  state,  etc.), 
there  is  a  tendency  for  the  work  to  become  over- 
symbolic.  So  much  of  this  material  lies  beyond  the 
experience  and  capacities  of  the  child  of  four  and 


FROEBEL'S  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES        121 

five  that  practically  all  he  gets  out  of  it  is  the 
physical  and  emotional  reflex — he  does  not  get  any 
real  penetration  into  the  material  itself.  More- 
over, there  is  danger,  in  these  ambitious  programs, 
of  an  unfavorable  reaction  upon  the  chCd's  own 
intellectual  attitude.  Having  covered  pretty 
much  the  whole  universe  in  a  purely  make- 
believe  fashion,  he  becomes  blase,  loses  his 
natural  hunger  for  the  simple  things  of  direct 
experience,  and  approaches  the  material  of  the 
first  grades  of  the  primary  school  with  a  feeling 
that  he  has  had  all  that  already.  The  later  years 
of  a  child's  life  have  their  own  rights,  and  a  super- 
ficial, merely  emotional  anticipation  is  likely  to  do 
the  child  serious  injury. 

Moreover,  there  is  danger  that  a  mental  habit 
of  jumping  rapidly  from  one  topic  to  another  be 
induced.  The  little  child  has  a  good  deal  of 
patience  and  endurance  of  a  certain  type.  It  is 
true  that  he  has  a  liking  for  novelty  and  variety; 
that  he  soon  wearies  of  an  activity  that  does  not 
lead  out  into  new  fields  and  open  up  new  paths  for 
exploration.  iMy  plea,  however,  is  not  for  mo- 
notony. There  is  sufiicient  variety  in  the  activi- 
ties, furnishings,  and  instrumentalities  of  the 
homes  from  which  the  children  come  to  give  con- 
tinual diversity.  It  touches  the  civic  and  the 
industrial  life  at  this  and  that  point;  these  concerns 
can  be  brought  in,  when  desirable,  without  going 


122  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

beyond  the  unity  of  the  main  topic.  Thus  there 
is  an  opportunity  to  foster  that  sense  which  is 
at  the  basis  of  attention  and  of  all  inteUectual 
growth — a  sense  of  continuity. 

This  continuity  is  often  interfered  with  by  the 
very  methods  that  aim  at  securing  it.  From  the 
child's  standpoint  unity  lies  in  the  subject-matter — 
in  the  present  case,  in  the  fact  that  he  is  always 
dealing  with  one  thing:  home  life.  Emphasis  is 
continually  passing  from  one  phase  of  this  life 
to  another;  one  occupation  after  another,  one 
piece  of  furniture  after  another,  one  relation  after 
another,  etc.,  receive  attention;  but  they  all  fall 
into  building  up  one  and  the  same  mode  of  living, 
although  bringing  now  this  feature,  now  that,  into 
prominence.  The  child  is  working  all  the  time 
within  a  unity,  giving  different  phases  of  its  clear- 
ness and  defijiiteness,  and  bringing  them  into 
coherent  connection  with  each  other.  When  there 
is  a  great  diversity  of  subject-matter,  continuity 
is  apt  to  be  sought  simply  on  the  formal  side;  that 
is,  in  schemes  of  sequence,  "schools  of  work,"  a 
rigid  program  of  development  followed  with  every 
topic,  a  "thought  for  the  day"  from  which  the 
work  is  not  supposed  to  stray.  As  a  rule  such 
sequence  is  purely  intellectual,  hence  is  grasped  only 
by  the  teacher,  quite  passing  over  the  head  of  the 
child.  Hence  the  program  for  the  year,  term, 
month,  week,  etc.,  should  be  made  out  on  the  basis 


FROEBEL'S  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES       1 23 

of  estimating  how  much  of  the  common  subject- 
matter  can  be  covered  in  that  time,  not  on  the 
basis  of  intellectual  or  ethical  principles.  This 
will  give  both  defijiiteness  and  elasticity. 

METHOD 

The  peculiar  problem  of  the  early  grades  is,  of 
course,  to  get  hold  of  the  child's  natural  impulses 
and  instincts,  and  to  utilize  them  so  that  the  child 
is  carried  on  to  a  higher  plane  of  perception  and 
judgment,  and  equipped  with  more  efficient  habits; 
so  that  he  has  an  enlarged  and  deepened  conscious- 
ness and  increased  control  of  powers  of  action. 
Wherever  this  result  is  not  reached,  play  results  in 
mere  amusement  and  not  in  educative  growth. 

Upon  the  whole,  constructive  or  *' built  up" 
work  (with,  of  course,  the  proper  alternation  of 
story,  song,  and  game  which  may  be  connected, 
so  far  as  is  desirable,  with  the  ideas  involved  in  the 
construction)  seems  better  fitted  than  anything 
else  to  secure  these  two  factors — initiation  in  the 
child's  own  impulse  and  termination  upon  a  higher 
plane.  It  brings  the  child  in  contact  with  a 
great  variety  of  material:  wood,  tin,  leather,  yarn, 
etc. ;  it  supplies  a  motive  for  using  these  materials 
in  real  ways  instead  of  going  through  exercises 
having  no  meaning  except  a  remote  symbolic  one; 
it  calls  into  play  alertness  of  the  senses  and  acute- 
ness  of  observation;  it  demands  clear-cut  imagery 


124  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

of  the  ends  to  be  accomplished,  and  requires  in- 
genuity and  invention  in  planning;  it  makes 
necessary  concentrated  attention  and  personal  re- 
sponsibility in  execution,  while  the  results  are  in 
such  tangible  form  that  the  child  may  be  led  to 
judge  his  owti  work  and  improve  his  standards. 

A  word  should  be  said  regarding  the  psychology 
of  imitation  and  suggestion  in  relation  to  kinder- 
garten work.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  little 
child  is  highly  imitative  and  open  to  suggestions; 
there  is  no  doubt  that  his  crude  powers  and  imma- 
ture consciousness  need  to  be  continually  enriched 
and  directed  through  these  channels.  But  on 
this  account  it  is  imperative  to  discriminate  be- 
tween a  use  of  imitation  and  suggestion  which  is  so 
external  as  to  be  thoroughly  non-psychological,  and 
a  use  which  is  justified  through  its  organic  relation 
to  the  child's  own  activities.  As  a  general  prin- 
ciple no  activity  should  be  originated  by  imitation. 
The  start  must  come  from  the  child;  the  model  or 
copy  may  then  be  supplied  in  order  to  assist  the 
child  in  imaging  more  definitely  what  it  is  that  he 
really  wants — in  bringing  him  to  consciousness. 
Its  value  is  not  as  model  to  copy  in  action,  but  as 
guide  to  clearness  and  adequacy  of  conception. 
Unless  the  child  can  get  away  from  it  to  his  own 
imagery  when  it  comes  to  execution,  he  is  rendered 
servile  and  dependent,  not  developed.  Imitation 
comes  in  to  reinforce  and  help  out,  not  to  initiate. 


FROEBEL'S  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES        125 

There  is  no  ground  for  holding  that  the  teacher 
should  not  suggest  anything  to  the  child  until  he 
has  consciously  expressed  a  want  in  that  direction. 
A  sympathetic  teacher  is  quite  likely  to  know  more 
clearly  than  the  child  himself  what  his  own  instincts 
are  and  mean.  But  the  suggestion  must^/  in  with 
the  dominant  mode  of  growth  in  the  child;  it 
must  serve  simply  as  stimulus  to  bring  forth  more 
adequately  what  the  child  is  already  blindly  striv- 
ing to  do.  Only  by  watching  the  child  and  seeing 
the  attitude  that  he  assumes  toward  suggestions 
can  we  tell  whether  they  are  operating  as  factors 
in  furthering  the  child's  growth,  or  whether  they 
are  external,  arbitrary  impositions  interfering  with 
normal  growth. 

The  same  principle  applies  even  more  strongly 
to  so-called  dictation  work.  Nothing  is  more 
absurd  than  to  suppose  that  there  is  no  middle 
term  between  leaving  a  child  to  his  own  unguided 
fancies  and  likes  or  controlling  his  activities  by  a 
formal  succession  of  dictated  directions.  As  just 
intimated,  it  is  the  teacher's  business  to  know 
what  powers  are  striving  for  utterance  at  a  given 
period  in  the  child's  development,  and  what  sorts 
of  activity  will  bring  these  to  helpful  expression,  in 
order  then  to  supply  the  requisite  stimuli  and 
needed  materials.  The  suggestion,  for  instance,  of 
a  playhouse,  the  suggestion  that  comes  from  seeing 
objects  that  have  already  been  made  to  furnish  it. 


126  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

from  seeing  other  children  at  work,  is  quite  suflS- 
cient  defijiitely  to  direct  the  acti\ities  of  a  normal 
child  of  five.  Imitation  and  suggestion  come  in 
naturally  and  inevitably,  but  only  as  instruments  to 
help  him  carry  out  his  own  wishes  and  ideas.  They 
serve  to  make  him  realize,  to  bring  to  conscious- 
ness, what  he  already  is  striving  for  in  a  vague, 
confused,  and  therefore  ineffective  way.  From 
the  psychological  standpoint  it  may  safely  be  said 
that  when  a  teacher  has  to  rely  upon  a  series  of 
dictated  directions,  it  is  just  because  the  child  has 
no  image  of  his  own  of  what  is  to  be  done  or  why  it 
is  to  be  done.  Instead,  therefore,  of  gaining  power 
of  control  by  conforming  to  directions,  he  is  really 
losing  it — made  dependent  upon  an  external  source. 
In  conclusion,  it'  may  be  pointed  out  that  such 
subject-matter  and  the  method  connect  directly 
with  the  work  of  the  six-year-old  children  (corre- 
sponding to  the  first  grade  of  primary  work). 
The  play  reproduction  of  the  home  life  passes 
naturally  on  into  a  more  extended  and  serious 
study  of  the  larger  social  occupations  upon  which 
the  home  is  dependent;  while  the  continually 
increasing  demands  made  upon  the  child's  own 
ability  to  plan  and  execute  carry  him  over  into 
more  controlled  use  of  attention  upon  more  dis- 
tinctively intellectual  topics.  It  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  the  readjustment  needed  to  secure 
continuity   between   "kindergarten"    and    "first- 


FROEBEL'S  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES        1 27 

grade"  work  cannot  be  brought  about  wholly  from 
the  side  of  the  latter.  The  school  change  must  be 
as  gradual  and  insensible  as  that  in  the  growth  of 
the  child.  This  is  impossible  unless  the  subprimary 
work  surrenders  whatever  isolates  it,  and  hospi- 
tably welcomes  whatever  materials  and  resources 
will  keep  pace  with  the  full  development  of  the 
child's  powers,  and  thus  keep  him  always  prepared, 
ready,  for  the  next  work  he  has  to  do. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  OCCUPATIONS 


VI 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  OCCUPATIONS 

By  occupation  is  not  meant  any  kind  of  "busy 
work"  or  exercises  that  may  be  given  to  a  child 
in  order  to  keep  him  out  of  mischief  or  idleness 
when  seated  at  his  desk.  By  occupation  I  mean 
Ca  mode  of  activity  on  the  part  of  the  child  which 
reproduces,  or  runs  parallel  to,  some  form  of  work 
carried  on  in  social  U^  In  the  University  Ele- 
mentary School  these  occupations  are  represented 
by  the  shop  work  with  wood  and  tools ;  by  cooking, 
sewing,  and  by  the  textile  work  herewith  reported 
upon. 

The  fundamental  point  in  the  psycholo^  of  an 
occupation  is  that  it  maintaiiis_aL_b.alance  between 
the  inteUectuaL  and  the  practical  phases  of  experi- 
ence. As  an  occupation  it  is  active  or  motor; 
it  finds  expression  through  the  physical  organs — 
the  eyes,  hands,  etc.  But  it  also  involves  con- 
tinual observation  of  materials,  and  continual 
planning  and  reflection,  in  order  that  the  practical 
or  executive  side  may  be  successfully  carried  on. 
Occupation  as  thus  conceived  must,  therefore,  be 
carefully  distinguished  from  work  which  educates 
primarily  for  a  trade.  It  differs  because,  its  end 
Js_in  itself;    in  the  growth  that  comes  from   the 


132  TEE  SCHOOL  AND  S0CIET7 

continual  interplay  of  ideas  andjtheir  embodiment 
in  action,  not  in  external  utility. 

It  is  possible  to  carry  on  this  type  of  work  in 
other  than  trade  schools,  so  that  the  entire  empha- 
sis falls  upon  the  manual  or  physical  side.  In  such 
cases  the  work  is  reduced  to  a  mere  routine  or 
custom,  and  its  educational  value  is  lost.  This  is 
the  inevitable  tendency  wherever,  in  manual 
training  for  instance,  the  mastery  of  certain  tools, 
or  the  production  of  certain  objects,  is  made  the 
primary  end,  and  the  child  is  not  given,  wherever 
possible,  intellectual  responsibility  for  selecting 
the  materials  and  instruments  that  are  most  fit, 
and  given  an  opportunity  to  think  out  his  own 
model  and  plan  of  work,  led  to  perceive  his  own 
errors,  and  find  out  how  to  correct  them — that  is, 
of  course,  within  the  range  of  his  capacities.  So 
far  as  the  external  result  Is  held  in  view,  rather  than 
the  mental  and  moral  states  and  growth  involved 
in  the  process  of  reaching  the  result,  the  work  may 
be  called  manual,  but  cannot  rightly  be  termed 
an  occupation.  Of  course  the  tendency  of  all 
mere  habit,  routine,  or  custom  is  to  result  in  what 
is  unconscious  and  mechanical.  That  of  occupa- 
tion is  to  put  the  maximum  of  consciousness  into 
whatever  is  done. 

This  enables  us  to  interpret  the  stress  laid  (a) 
upon  personal  experimenting,  planning,  and  rein- 
venting in  connection  with  the  textile  work,  and  (b) 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  OCCUPATIONS  133 

its  parallelism  with  lines  of  historical  development. 
The  first  requires  the  child  to  be  mentally  quick 
and  alert  at  every  point  in  order  that  he  may  do 
the  outward  work  properly.  The  second  enriches 
and  deepens  the  work  performed  by  saturating  it 
with  values  suggested  from  the  social  life  which  it 
recapitulates. 

Occupations,  so  considered,  furnish  the  ideal 
occasions  for  both  sense-training  and  discipline  in 
thought.  The  weakness  of  ordinary  lessons  in 
observation,  calculated  to  train  the  senses,  is  that 
they  have  no  outlet  beyond  themselves,  and  hence 
no  necessary  motive.  Now,  in  the  natural  Life 
of  the  individual  and  the  race  there  is  always  a 
reason  for  sense-observation.  There  is  always 
some  need,  coming  from  an  end  to  be  reached,  that 
makes  one  look  about  to  discover  and  discriminate 
whatever  will  assist  him.  Normal  sensations 
operate  as  clues,  as  aids,  as  stimuli,  in  directing 
activity  in  what  has  to  be  done;  they  are  not  ends 
in  themselves.  Separated  from  real  needs  and 
motives,  sense-training  becomes  a  mere  gymnastic 
and  easily  degenerates  into  acquiring  what  are 
hardly  more  than  mere  knacks  or  tricks  in 
observation,  or  else  mere  excitement  of  the 
sense  organs. 

The  same  principle  applies  in  normal  thinking. 
It  also  does  not  occur  for  its  own  sake,  nor  end  in 
itself.     It  arises  from  the  need  of  meeting  some 


134  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

difficulty,  in  reflecting  upon  the  best  way  of  over- 
coming it,  and  thus  leads  to  planning,  to  projecting 
mentally  the  result  to  be  reached,  and  deciding 
upon  the  steps  necessary  and  their  serial  orderT) 
[This  concrete  logic  of  action  long  precedes  the  logic 
iof  pure  speculation  or  abstract  investigation,  and 
through  the  mental  habits  that  it  forms  is  the  best 
[of  preparations  for  the  latter. 

Another  educational  point  upon  which  the  psy- 
chology of  occupations  throws  helpful  light  is  the 
place  of  interesLin  school  work.  One  of  the  objec- 
tions regularly  brought  against  giving  in  school 
work  any  large  or  positive  place  to  the  child's 
interest  is  the  impossibility  on  such  a  basis  of 
proper  selection.  The  child,  it  is  said,  has  all  kinds 
of  interests,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent.  It, is 
necessary  to  decide  between  the  interests  that  are 
really  important  and  those  that  are  trivial ;  between 
those  that  are  helpful  and  those  that  are  hamiful; 
between  those  that  are  transitor}'  or  mark  immedi- 
ate excitement,  and  those  which  endure  and  are  per- 
manently influential.  It  would  seem  as  if  we  had 
to  go  beyond  interest  to  get  any  basis  for  using 
interest. 

Now,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  occupation 
work  possesses  a  strong  interest  for  the  child.  A 
glance  into  any  school  where  such  work  is  carried 
on  will  give  suflicient  evidence  of  this  fact.  Out- 
side of  the  school,  a  large  portion  of  the  children's 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  OCCUPATIONS  135 

plays  are  simply  more  or  less  miniature  and  hap- 
hazard attempts  at  reproducing  social  occupations. 
There  are  certain  reasons  for  believing  that  the 
type  of  interest  which  springs  up  along  with  these 
occupations  is  of  a  thoroughly  healthy,  permanent, 
and  really  educative  sort;  and  that  by  giving  a 
larger  place  to  occupations  we  should  secure  an 
excellent,  perhaps  the  very  best,  way  of  making 
an  appeal  to  the  child's  spontaneous  interest,  and 
yet  have,  at  the  same  time,  some  guaranty  that 
we  are  not  dealing  with  what  is  merely  pleasure- 
giving,  exciting,  or  transient. 

In  the  first  place,  every  interest  grows  out  of 
some  instinct  or  some  habit  that  in  turn  is  finally 
based  upon  an  original  instinct.  It  does  not  follow 
that  all  instincts  are  of  equal  value,  or  that  we  do 
not  inherit  many  instincts  which  need  transforma- 
tion, rather  than  satisfaction,  in  order  to  be  useful 
in  life,  'itut  the  instincts  which  find  their  conscious 
outlet  and  expression  in  occupation  are  bound  to  be 
of  an  exceedingly  fundamental  and  permanent 
type.  The  activities  of  life  are  of  necessity  directed 
to  bringing  the  materials  and  forces  of  nature  I/' 
under  the  control  of  our  purposes;  of  making  them 
tributary  to  ends  of  life.  Men  have  had  to  work 
in  order  to  live.  In  and  through  their  work  they 
have  mastered  nature,  they  have  protected  and 
enriched  the  conditions  of  their  own  life,  they  have 
been  awakened  to  the  sense  of  their  own  powers — 


/ 


136  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

have  been  led  to  invent,  to  plan,  and  to  rejoice 
in  the  acquisition  of  skill.  In  a  rough  way,  all 
occupations  may  be  classified  as  gathering  about 
man's  fundamental  relations  to  the  world  in  which 
he  lives  through  getting  food  to  maintain  life; 
securing  clothing  and  shelter  to  protect  and 
ornament  it,  and  thus,  finally,  to  provide  a  perma- 
nent home  m  which  all  the  higher  and  more  spiritual 
interests  may  center.  It  is  hardly  unreasonable 
to  suppose  that  interests  which  have  such  a  history 
behind  them  must  be  of  the  worthy  sort. 

However,  these  interests  as  they  develop  in  the 
child  not  only  recapitulate  past  important  activi- 
ties of  the  race,  but  reproduce  those  of  the  child's 
present  environment.  He  continually  sees  his 
elders  engaged  in  such  pursuits.  He  daily  has  to 
do  with  things  which  are  the  results  of  just  such 
occupations.  He  comes  in  contact  with  facts  that 
have  no  meaning,  except  in  reference  to  them. 
Take  these  things  out  of  the  present  social  life  and 
see  how  little  would  remain — and  this  not  only  on 
the  material  side,  but  as  regards  intellectual, 
aesthetic,  and  moral  activities,  for  these  are  largely 
and  necessarily  bound  up  with  occupations.  The 
child's  instinctive  interests  in  this  direction  are, 
therefore,  constantly  reinforced  by  what  he  sees, 
feels,  and  hears  going  on  around  him.  Suggestions 
along  this  line  are  continually  coming  to  him; 
motives  are  awakened;   his  energies  are  stirred  to 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  OCCUPATIONS  137 

action.  Again,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose 
that  interests  which  are  touched  so  constantly,  and 
on  so  many  sides,  belong  to  the  worthy  and  endur- 
ing type. 

In  the  third  place,  one  of  the  objections  made 
against  the  principle  of  interest  in  education  is  that 
TF  tends  to  disintegration  of  mental  economy  by 
constantly  stirring  up  the  child  in  this  way  or  that, 
destroying  continuity  and  thoroughness^  But 
an  occupation  (such  as  the  textile  one  herewith 
reported  on)  is  of  necessity  a  continuous  thing. 
It  lasts,  not  only  for  days,  but  for  months  and 
years.  It  represents,  not  a  stirring  of  isolated 
and  superficial  energies,  but  rather  a  steady, 
continuous  organization  of  power  along  certain 
general  lines.  The  same  is  true,  of  course,  of  any 
other  form  of  occupation,  such  as  shopwork  with 
tools,  or  as  cooking.  The  occupations  articulate 
a  vast  variety  of  impulses,  otherwise  separate  and 
spasmodic,  into  a  consistent  skeleton  with  a  firm 
backbone.  It  may  well  be  doubted  whether, 
wholly  apart  from  some  such  regular  and  progres- 
sive modes  of  action,  extending  as  cores  throughout 
the  entire  school,  it  would  be  permanently  safe  to 
give  the  principle  of  "interest"  any  large  place  in 
school  work. 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ATTENTION 


vn 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ATTENTION 

The  subprimary  or  kindergarten  department  is 
undertaking  the  pedagogical  problems  growing  out 
of  an  attempt  to  connect  kindergarten  work  inti- 
mately with  primary,  and  to  readapt  traditional 
materials  and  technique  to  meet  present  social  con- 
ditions and  our  present  physiological  and  psy- 
chological knowledge.  A  detailed  statement  of 
the  work  will  be  pubUshed  later. 

Little  children  have  their  observations  and 
thoughts  mainly  directed  toward  people:  what 
they  do,  how  they  behave,  what  they  are  occupied 
with,  and  what  comes  of  it.  Jheir  interest  is  of  a 
personal  rather  than  of  an  objective  or  intellectual 
sort.  Its  intellectual  counterpart  is  the  stor>^- 
form;  not  the  task,  consciously  defined  end,  or 
problem — meaning  by  story-form  something  psy- 
chical, the  holding  together  of  a  variety  of  persons, 
things,  and  incidents  through  a  common  idea  that 
enhsts  feehng;  not  an  outward  relation  or  tale. 
Their  minds  seek  wholes,  varied  through  episode, 
enlivened  with  action  and  defined  in  salient  fea- 
tures—there must  be  go,  movement,  the  sense  of 
use  and  operation — inspection  of  things  separated 
from  the  idea  by  which  they  are  carried.  Analysis 
141 


142  TEE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

lof  isolated  detail  of  form  and  structure  neither 
[appeals  nor  satisfies. 

Material  provided  by  existing  social  occupations 
is  calculated  to  meet  and  feed  this  attitude.  In 
previous  years  the  children  have  been  concerned 
with  the  occupations  of  the  home,  and  the  contact 
of  homes  with  one  another  and  with  outside  life. 
Now  they  may  take  up  typical  occupations  of  soci- 
ety at  large — a  step  farther  removed  from  the 
child's  egoistic,  self-absorbed  interest,  and  yet  deal- 
ing with  something  personal  and  something  which 
touches  him. 

From  the  standpoint  of  educational  theory,  the 
following  features  may  be  noted: 

I.  The  study  of  natural  objects,  processes,  and 
relations  is  placed  in  a  human  setting.  During  the 
year,  a  considerably  detailed  observation  of  seeds 
and  their  growth,  of  plants,  woods,  stones,  animals, 
as  to  some  phases  of  structure  and  habit,  of  geo- 
graphical conditions  of  landscape,  cUmate,  arrange- 
ment of  land  and  water,  is  undertaken.  The 
pedagogical  problem  is  to  direct  the  child's  power  of 
observation,  to  nurture  his  s>Tnpathetic  interest  in 
characteristic  traits  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives, 
to  afford  interpreting  material  for  later  more  special 
studies,  and  yet  to  supply  a  carrying  medium  for  the 
variety  of  facts  and  ideas  through  the  dominant 
Spontaneous  emotions  and  thoughts  of  the  child. 
Hence  their  association  with  human  life.     Abscv 


TEE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ATTENTION  143 

lutely  no  separation  is  made  between  the  "social" 
side  of  the  work,  its  concern  with  people's  activities 
and  their  mutual  dependencies,  and  the  "science," 
regard  for  physical  facts  and  forces — because  the 
conscious  distinction  between  man  and  nature  is 
the  result  of  later  reflection  and  abstraction,  and  to 
force  it  upon  the  child  here  is  not  only  to  fail  to 
engage  his  whole  mental  energy,  but  to  confuse 
and  distract  him.  The  environment  is  always 
that  in  which  life  is  situated  and  through  which 
it  is  circumstanced;  and  to  isolate  it,  to  make  it 
with  little  children  an  object  of  observation  and 
remark  by  itself,  is  to  treat  human  nature  incon- 
siderately. At  last,  the  original  open  and  free 
attitude  of  the  mind  to  nature  is  destroyed; 
nature  has  been  reduced  to  a  mass  of  mean- 
ingless details. 

In  its  emphasis  upon  the  "concrete"  and  "indi- 
vidual," modern  pedagogical  theorj'  often  loses 
sight  of  the  fact  that  the  existence  and  presentation 
of  an  individual  physical  thing — a  stone,  an  orange, 
a  cat — is  no  guaranty  of  concreteness;  that  this  is  a 
psychological  affair,  whatever  appeals  to  the  mind 
as  a  whole,  as  a  self-sufficient  center  of  interest 
and  attention.  The  reaction  from  this  external 
and  somewhat  dead  standpoint  often  assumes, 
however,  that  the  needed  clothing  with  human 
significance  can  come  only  by  direct  personification, 
and  we  have  that  continued  symbolization  of  a 


( 


144  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

plant,  cloud,  or  rain  which  makes  only  pseudo- 
science  possible;  which,  instead  of  generating  love 
for  nature  itself,  switches  interest  to  certain  sensa- 
tional and  emotional  accompaniments,  and  leaves 
it,  at  last,  dissipated  and  burnt  out.  And  even 
the  tendency  to  approach  nature  through  the 
medium  of  literature,  the  pine  tree  through  the 
fable  of  the  discontented  pine,  etc.,  while  recogniz- 
ing the  need  of  the  human  association,  fails  to  note 
that  there  is  a  more  straightforward  road  from 
mind  to  the  object — direct  through  connection 
with  life  itself;  and  that  the  poem  and  story,  the 
literary  statement,  have  their  place  as  reinforce- 
ments and  idealizations,  not  as  foundation  stones, 
'what  is  wanted,  in  other  words,  is  not  to  fix  up  a 
connection  of  child  mind  and  nature,  but  to  give 
free  and  effective  play  to  the  connection  already 
operating. 

2.  This  suggests  at  once  the  practical  questions 
that  are  usually  discussed  under  the  name  of 
/"correlation,"  questions  of  such  interaction  of  the 
\  various  matters  studied  and  powers  under  acquisi- 
tion as  will  avoid  waste  and  maintain  unity  of 
mental  growth.  From  the  standpoint  adopted 
the  problem  is  one  of  differentiation  rather  than 
of  correlation  as  ordinarily  understood.  The  unity 
of  life,  as  it  presents  itself  to  the  child,  binds 
together  and  carries  along  the  different  occupations, 
the  diversity  of  plants,  animals,  and  geograpbl- 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ATTENTION  145 

conditions;  drawing,  modeling,  games,  construc- 
tive work,  numerical  calculations  are  ways  of  carry- 
ing certain  features  of  it  to  mental  and  emotional 
satisfaction  and  completeness.  Not  much  atten- 
tion is  paid  in  this  year  to  reading  and  writing; 
but  it  is  obvious  that  if  this  were  regarded  as 
desirable,  the  same  principle  would  apply.  It  is 
the  community  and  continuity  of  the  subject- 
matter  that  organizes,  that  correlates;  correlation 
is  not  through  devices  of  instruction  which  the 
teacher  employs  in  tying  together  things  in  them- 
selves disconnected. 

3.  Two  recognized  demands  of  primary  educa- 
tion are  often,  at  present,  not  unified  or  are  even 
opposed,  ^e  need  of  the  familiar,  the  already 
experienced,  as  a  basis  for  moving  upon  the  un- 
known and  remote,  is  a  commonplaceT]  \The 
claims  of  the  child's  imagination  as  a  factor  is  at 
least  beginning  to  be  recognizedl  The  problem 
is  to  work  these  two  forces  together,  instead  of 
separately.  The  child  is  too  often  given  drill  upon 
familiar  objects  and  ideas  under  the  sanction  of 
the  first  principle,  while  he  is  introduced  with 
equal  directness  to  the  weird,  strange,  and  impos- 
sible to  satisfy  the  claims  of  the  second.  The 
result,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say,  is  a  twofold 
failure.  There  is  no  special  connection  between 
the  unreal,  the  myth,  the  fairy  tale,  and  the  play 
of  mental  imagery.     Imagination  is  not  a  matter 


146  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

of  an  impossible  subject-matter,  but  a  constructive 
way  of  dealing  with  any  subject-matter  under  the 
influence  of  a  pervading  id^aj  The  pointjs  not  to 
dwell  with  wearisome  iteration  upon  the  familiar 
and  under  the  guise  of  object-lessons  to  keep  the 
senses  directed  at  material  which  they  have  already 
made  acquaintance  with,  but  to.  .  enlJYen  ajid 
illumine  the  ordinary,  commonplace,  and  homely 
by  using  it  to  build  up  and  appreciate  situations 
previously  unrealized  and  alien.  And  this  also  is 
culture  pXimagiimtion.  Some  writers  appear  to 
have  the  impression  that  the  child's  imagination 
has  outlet  only  in  myth  and  fairy  tale  of  ancient 
time  and  distant  place  or  in  weaving  egregious 
fabrications  regarding  sun,  moon,  and  stars;  and 
have  even  pleaded  for  a  niythical  investiture  of  all 
"science" — as  a  way  of  satisfying  the  dominating 
imagination  of  the  child.  But  fortunately  these 
things  are  exceptions,  are  intensifications,  are 
relaxations  of  the  average  child;  not  his  pursuits. 
The  John  and  Jane  that  most  of  us  know  let  their 
imaginations  play  about  the  current  and  familiar 
contacts  and  events  of  life — about  father  and 
mother  and  friend,  about  steamboats  and  loco- 
motives, and  sheep  and  cows,  about  the  romance  of 
farm  and  forest,  of  scasliore  and  mountain.  What 
is  needed,  in  a  word,|2s  to  afford  occasion  by  which 
the  child  is  moved  to  educe  and  exchange  with 
others  his  store  of  experiences,  his  range  of  uiforma- 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ATTENTION  147 

tion,  to  make  new  observations  correcting  and 
extending  them  in  order  to  keep  his  images  moving, 
in  order  to  find  mental  rest  and  satisfaction  in 
definite^nd  vivid  realization  of  what  is  new  and 
enlarging^ 

With  the  development  of  reflective  attention 
come  the-need  and  the  possibility  of  a  change  in  the 
mode  of  the  child's  instruction.  In  the  previous 
•  paragraphs  we  have  been  concerned  with  the  direct, 
spontaneous  attitude  that  marks  the  child  till  into 
his  seventh  year — his  demand  for  new  experiences 
and  his  desire  to  complete  his  partial  experiences  by 
building  up  images  and  expressing  them  in  play. 
This  attitude  is  ty-pical  of  what  writers  call  sgon- 
.tajiemiSL-alteiition,  or,  as  some  say,  non-voluntar>' 
attention. 

The  child  is  simply  absorbed  in  what  he  is  doing; 
the  occupation  in  which  he  is  engaged  lays  complete 
hold  upon  him.  He  gives  himself  without  reserve. 
Hence,  while  there  is  much  energy  spent,  there  is 
no  conscious  effort;  while  the  child  is  intent  to  th^ 
point  of  engrossment,  there  is  no  conscious  inten- 
tion. 

\  With  the  development  of  a  sense  of  more  remote 
eiTds,  and  of  the  need  of  directing  acts  so  as  to  make 
them  means  for  these  ends  (a  matter  discussed 
in  the  second  n-imber),  we  have  the  transition  to 
what  is  termed  indirect,  or,  as  some  writers  prefei 
to  say,  voluntary,  attention.,/  A  result  is  imaged. 


148  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

and  the  child  attends  to  what  is  before  him  or  what 
he  is  immediately  doing  because  it  helps  to  secure 
the  result.  Taken  by  itself,  the  object  or  the  act 
might  be  indifferent  or  even  repulsive.  But 
because  it  is  felt  to  belong  to  something  desirable 
or  valuable,  it  borrows  the  latter's  attracting  and 
holding  power. 

This  is  the  transition  to  "voluntary"  attention, 
but  only  the  transition.  The  latter  comes  fully 
into  being  only  when  the  child  entertains  results 
in  the  form  of  problems  or  questions,  the  solution  of 
which  he  is  to  seek  for  himself.  In  the  intervening 
stage  (in  the  child  from  eight  to,  say,  eleven  or 
twelve) ,  while  the  child  directs  a  series  of  interven- 
ing activities  on  the  basis  of  some  end  he  wishes 
to  reach,  this  end  is  something  to  be  done  or  made, 
or  some  tangible  result  to  be  reached ;  the  problem 
is  a  practical  difficulty,  rather  than  an  intellectual 
question.  'But  with  growing  power  the  child  can 
conceive  of  the  end  as  something  to  be  found  out, 
discovered;  and  can  control  his  acts  and  images 
so  as  to  help  in  the  inquiry  and  solution.  1  This  is 
reflective  attention  proper. 

In  history  work  there  is  change  from  the  story 
and  biography  form,  from  discussion  of  questions 
that  arise,  to  the  formulation  of  questions.  Points 
about  which  difference  of  opinion  is  possible, 
matters  upon  which  experience,  reflection,  etc., 
can  be  brought  to  bear,  are  always  coming  up  in 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ATTENTION  149 

history.  But  to  use  the  discussion  to  develop 
this  matter  of  doubt  and  difference  into  a  definite 
problem,  to  bring  the  child  to  feel  just  what  the 
difficulty  is,  and  then  throw  him  upon  his  own 
resources  in  looking  up  material  bearing  upon  the 
point,  and  upon  his  judgment  in  bringing  it  to  bear, 
or  getting  a  solution,  is  a  marked  intellectual 
advance^/  So  in  the  science  there  is  a  change  from 
the  practical  attitude  of  making  and  using  cameras 
to  the  consideration  of  the  problems  intellectually 
mvolved  in  this — to  principles  of  light,  angular 
measurements,  etc.,  which  give  the  theory  or 
explanation  of  the  practice. 

In  general,  this  growth  is  a  natural  process.  But 
the  proper  recognition  and  use  of  it  is  perhaps  the 
most  serious  problem  in  instruction  upon  the  intel- 
lectual side.  A  person  who  has  gained  the  power 
of  reflective  attention,  the  power  to  hold  problems, 
questions,  before  the  mind,  is  in  so  far,  intellectually 
speaking,  educated.  He  has  mental  discipline — 
power  of  the  mind  and  for  the  mind.  Without 
this  the  mind  remains  at  the  mercy  of  custom  and 
external  suggestions.  Some  of  the  difficulties  may 
be  barely  indicated  by  referring  to  an  error  that 
almost  dominates  instruction  of  the  usual  type. 
Too  often  it  is  assumed  that  attention  can  be  given 
directly  to  any  subject-matter,  if  only  the  proper 
will  or  disposition  be  at  hand,  failure  being  regarded 
as  a  sign  of  unwillingness  or  indocility.     Lessons  in 


I50  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

arithmetic,  geography,  and  grammar  are  put  before 
tlie  child,  and  he  is  told  to  attend  in  order  to  learn. 
But  excepting  as  there  is  some  question,  some 
doubt,   present  in   the  mind  as  a  basis  for  this 

! attention,  rejleciive  attention  is  impossible.  If 
there  is  sufficient  intrinsic  interest  in  the  material, 
there  will  be  direct  or  spontaneous  attention,  which 
is  excellent  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  which  merely  of 
itself  does  not  give  power  of  thought  or  internal 
mental  control.  If  there  is  not  an  inherent 
attracting  power  in  the  material,  then  (according  to 
his  temperament  and  training,  and  the  precedents 
and  expectations  of  the  school)  the  teacher  will 
either  attempt  to  surround  the  material  with 
foreign  attractiveness,  making  a  bid  or  offering  a 
bribe  for  attention  by  "making  the  lesson  interest? 
ing";  or  else  will  resort  to  counterirritants  (low 
marks,  threats  of  non-promotion,  staying  after 
school,  personal  disapprobation,  expressed  in  a 
great  variety  of  ways,  naggings,  continuous  calling 
upon  the  child  to  "pay  attention,"  etc.);  or, 
probably,  will  use  some  of  both  means. 

But  (i)  the  attention  thus  gained  is  never  more 
than  partial,  or  divided;  and  (2)  it  always  remains 
dependent  upon  something  external — hence,  when 
the  attraction  ceases  or  the  pressure  lets  up,  there 
is  httle  or  no  gain  in  inner  or  intellectual  control. 

I  And  (3)  such  attention  is  always  for  the  sake  of 
"learning,"    i.e.,    memorizing   ready-made   answers 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ATTENTION  151 

lo  possible  questions  to  he  put  by  another.  jTrue^ 
reflective  attention,  on  the  other  hand,  always 
involves  judging,  reasoning,  deKberation;  it  means 
that  the  child  has  a  question  ofjiis  own  and  is 
actively  engaged  in  seeking  and  selecting  relevant 
material  with  which  to  answer  it,  considering 
the  bearings  and  relations  of  this  material — the 
kind  of  solution  it  calls  for.  The  problem  is  one's 
own;  hence  also  the  impetus,  the  stimulus  to  atten- 
tion, is  one's  own;  hence  also  the  training  secured 
is  one's  own — it  is  discipline,  or  gain  in  power  of 
control;  that  is,  ^habii  of  considering  problems. 

It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  in  the  tra- 
ditional education  so  much  stress  has  been  laid  upon 
the  presentation  to  the  child  of  ready-made  ma- 
terial (books,  object-lessons,  teacher's  talks,  etc.), 
and  the  child  has  been  so  almost  exclusively  held 
to  bare  responsibility  for  reciting  upon  this  ready- 
made  material,  that  there  has  been  only  accidental 
occasion  and  motive  for  developing  reflective 
attention.  Next  to  no  consideration  has  been 
paid  to  the  fundamental  necessity— Reading  the 
child  to  realize  a  problem  as  his  own,  so  that  he  is 
self-induced  to  attend  in  order  to  find  out  its 
answer.  So  completely  have  the  conditions  for 
securing  this  self-putting  of  problems  been  neg- 
lected that  the  very  idea  of  voluntary  attention 
has  been  radically  perverted.  It  is  regarded  as 
measured  by  unwilling  efi'ort — as  activity  called 


152  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

out  by  foreign,  and  so  repulsive,  material  under  con- 
ditions of  strain,  instead  of  as  self-initiated  effort. 
r*Voluntary"  is  treated  as  meaning  the  reluctant  and 
uisagreeable  instead  of  the  free,  the  self-directed, 
^ rough  personal  interest,  insight,  and  power. 


THE  AIM  OF  HISTORY  IN  ELEMENTARY 
EDUCATION 


vm 

THE  AIM  OF  HISTORY  IN  ELEMENTARY 
EDUCATION 

If  history  be  regarded  as  just  the  record  of  the 
past,  it  is  hard  to  see  any  grounds  for  claiming 
that  it  should  play  any  large  role  in  the  curriculum 
of  elementary  education.  The  past  is  the  past, 
and  the  dead  may  be  safely  left  to  bury  its  dead. 
There  are  too  many  urgent  demands  in  the  present, 
too  many  calls  over  the  threshold  of  the  future, 
to  permit  the  child  to  become  deeply  immersed 
in  what  is  forever  gone  by.  Not  so  when,  history 
is  considered  as  an  account  of  the  forces  and  forms 
of  social  life.  Social  hfe  we  have  always  with  us; 
the  distinction  of  past  and  present  is  indifferent  to 
it.  Whether  it  was  hved  just  here  or  just  there  is  a 
matter  of  sHght  moment.  It  is  life  for  all  that; 
it  shows  the  motives  which,  draw  men  together  and 
push  them  apart,  and  depicts  what  is  desirable 
and  what  is  hurtful.  Whatever^  history  may  be 
for  the  scientific  historian,  for  the  educator  it  rnust 
be  an  indirect  sociology — a  study  of  society  which 
lays  bare  its  process  of  becoming  and  its  modes 
of  organization.  ';  Existing  society  is  both  too  com- 
plex and  too  close  to  the  child  to  be  studied./  He 
finds  no  clues  into  its  labyrinth  of  detail  and  can 


156  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

mount  no  eminence  whence  to  get  a  perspective 
of  arrangement. 

If  the  aim  of  historical  instruction  is  to  enable 
the  child  to  appreciate  the  values  of  social  life,  to 
see  in  imagination  the  forces  which  favor  and  let 
men's  effective  co-operation  with  one  another,  to 
understand  the  sorts  of  character  that  help  on  and 
that  hold  back,  the  essential  thing  in  its  presentation 
is  to  make  it  moving,  dynamic.  History  must  be 
presented,  not  as  an  accumulation  of  results  or 
effects,  a  mere  statement  of  what  happened,  b\i|. 
as --a  forceful,  acting  thing.  The  motives — that 
is,  the  motors — must  stand  out.  To  study  history 
is  not  to  amass  information,  but  to  use_information 
in  constructing  a  vivid  picture  of  how  andjsJbi^  men 
did  thus  and  so ;  achieved  their  successes  and  carPie 
to  their  failures. 

When  history  is  conceived  as  dynamic,  as  mov- 
ing, its  economic  and  industrial  aspects  are  empha- 
sised-, These  are  but  technical  terms  which  express 
the  problem  with  which  humanity  is  unceasingly 
engaged ;/Eow  to  live,  how  to  master  and  use  nature 
so  as  to  make  it  tributary  to  the  enrichment  of 
human  hfey  The  great  advances  in  civilization 
have  come  through  those  manifestations  of  intelh- 
gence  which  have  hfted  man  from  his  precarious 
subjection  to  nature,  and  revealed  to  him  how  he 
may  make  its  forces  co-operate  with  his  own  pur- 
poses.    The  social  world  in  which  the  child  now 


HISTORY  IN  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION       157 

lives  is  so  rich  and  full  that  it  is  not  easy  to  see 
how  much  it  cost,  how  much  effort  and  thought  lie 
back  of  it.  Man  has  a  tremendous  equipment 
ready  at  hand.  The  child  may  be  led  to  translate 
these  ready-made  resources  into  fluid  terms;  he 
may  be  led  to  see  man  face  to  face  with  nature, 
without  inherited  capital,  without  tools,  without 
manufactured  materials.  And,  step  by  step,  he 
may  follow  the  processes  by  which  man  recognized 
the  needs  of  his  situation,  thought  out  the  weapons 
and  instruments  that  enable  him  to  cope  with  them ; 
and  may  learn  how  these  new  resources  opened 
new  horizons  of  growth  and  created  new  prob- 
lems. The  uidustrial  history  of  man  is  not  a 
materialistic  or  merely  utilitarian  affair.  It  is  a 
matter  of  intelhgence.  Its  record  is  the  record 
of  how  man  learned  to  think,  to  think  to  some 
effect,  to  transform  the  conditions  of  Ufe  so  that 
life  itself  became  a  different  thing.  It  is  an 
ethical  record  as  well;  the  account  of  the  con- 
ditions which  men  have  patiently  wrought  out 
to  serve  their  ends. 

The  question  of  how_huHian„heingS-Iive,  indeed, 
represents  the  dominant  interest  with  which  the 
child  approaches  historic  material.  It  is  this 
point  of  view  which  brings  those  who  worked  in 
the  past  close  to  the  beings  with  whom  he  is  daily 
associated,  and  confers  upon  him  the  gift  of  sympa- 
thetic penetration. 


IS8  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

The  child  who  is  interested  in  the  way  in  which 
men  lived,  the  tools  they  had  to  do  with,  the  new 
inventions  they  made,  the  transformations  of  life 
that  arose  from  the  power  and  leisure  thus  gained, 
is  eager  to  repeat  like  processes  in  his  own  action, 
to  remake  utensils,  to  reproduce  processes,  to 
rehandle  materials.  Since  he  understands  their 
problems  and  their  successes  only  by  seeing  what 
obstacles  and  what  resources  they  had  from  nature, 
the  child  is  interested  in  field  and  forest,  ocean  and 
mountain,  plant  and  animal.  By  building  up  a 
conception  of  the  natural  environment  in  which 
lived  the  people  he  is  studying,  he  gets  his  hold 
upon  their  liv^  This  reproduction  he  cannot 
make  excepting  as  he  gains  acquaintance  with  the 
natural  forces  and  forms  with  which  he  is  himself 
surrounded.  The  interest  m  history  gives  a^more 
human  coloring,  a  wider  significance,  to  his  own 
study  of  jiature.  His  knowledge  of  nalure  Jends 
point  and  accuracy  to  his  study  of  history.  This 
is  the  natural  "correlation"  of  history  and  science. 

This  same  end,  aTdeepcning  appreciation  of  social 
Uifi,  decides  the  place  of  the  .biq£ra£hic__clement  in 
historical  instruction,  '^^at  historical  material 
appeals  to  the  child  most  completely  and  vividly 
when  presented  in  individual  form,  when  summed 
up  in  the  lives  and  deeds  of  some  heroic  character, 
there  can  be  no  douliE/  Yet  it  is  possible  to  use 
biographies  so  that  they  become  a  collection  of 


HISTORY  IN  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION       159 

mere  stories,  interesting,  possibly,  to  the  point  of 
sensationalism,  but  yet  bringing  the  child  no  nearer 
to  comprehension  of  social  life.  This  happens 
when  the  individual  who  is  the  hero  of  the  tale  is 
isolated  from  his  social  en  vdronment;  when  the 
child  is  not  brought  to  feel  the  social  situations 
which  evoked  his  acts  and  the  social  progress  to 
which  his  deeds  contributed.  If  biography  is  pre'=^ 
sen  ted  as  a  dramatic  summary  of  social  needs  and/ 
achievements,  if  the  child's  imagination  pictures/ 
the  social  defects  and  problems  that  clamored" 
for  the  man  and  the  ways  in  which  the  individual 
met  the  emergency,  then  the  biography  is  an  organ 
of  social  study. 

A  consciousness  of  the  social  aim  of  history  pre- 
vents any  tendency  to  swamp  history  in  myth, 
fairy  story,  and  merely  literary  renderings.  I 
cannot  avoid  the  feeling  that  much  as  the  Her- 
bartian  school  has  done  to  enrich  the  elementary 
curriculum  in  the  direction  of  history,  it  has  often 
inverted  the  true  relationship  existing  between 
history  and  Uterature.  In  a  certain  sense  the 
motif  of  American  colonial  history  and  of  De  Foe's 
Robinson  Crusoe  are  the  same.  Both  represent 
man  who  has  achieved  civilization,  who  has 
attained  a  certain  maturity  of  thought,  who  has 
developed  ideals  and  means  of  action,  but  suddenly 
tlirown  back  upon  his  own  resources,  having  to 
cope  with  a  raw  and  often  hostile  nature,  and  to 


l6o  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

regain  success  by  sheer  intelligence,  energy,  and 
persistence  of  character.  But  when  Robinson 
Crusoe  supplies  the  material  for  the  curriculum  of 
the  third-  or  fourth-grade  child,  are  we  not  putting 
the  cart  before  the  horse  ?  Why  not  give  the  child 
the  reality  with  its  much  larger  sweep,  its  in  tenser 
forces,  its  more  vivid  and  lasting  value  for  life,  using 
the  Robinson  Crusoe  as  an  imaginative  idealization 
in  a  particular  case  of  the  same  sort  of  problems 
and  activities  ?  Again,  whatever  may  be  the  worth 
of  the  study  of  savage  Ufe  in  general,  and  of  the 
North  American  Indians  in  particular,  why  should 
that  be  approached  circuitously  through  the 
medium  of  Hiawatha,  instead  of  at  first  hand  ? 
employing  indeed  the  poem  to  furnish  the  idealized 
and  culminatmg  touches  to  a  series  of  conditions 
and  struggles  which  the  child  has  previously  real- 
ized in  more  specific  form.  Either  the  life  of  the 
Indian  presents  some  permanent  questions  and 
factors  in  social  life,  or  it  has  next  to  no  place  in  a 
scheme  of  instruction.  \If  it  has  such  a  value,  this 
should  be  made  to  stand  out  on  its  own  account, 
instead  of  being  lost  in  the  very  refinement  and 
beauty  of  a  purely  literary  presentation. 

The  same  end,  the  understanding  of  character 
and  social  relations  in  their  natural  dependence, 
enables  us,  I  think,  to  decide  upon  the  importance 
to  be  attached  to  chronological  order  in  historical 
instruction.     Considerable  stress  has  of  late  been 


HISTORY  IN  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION       i6l 

laid  upon  the  supposed  necessity  of  following  the 
development  of  civilization  through  the  successive 
steps  in  which  it  actually  took  place — beginning 
with  the  valleys  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Nile,  and 
coming  on  down  through  Greece,  Rome,  etc.  The 
point  urged  is  that  the  present  depends  upon  the 
past  and  each  phase  of  the  past  upon  a  prior  past. 
We  are  here  introduced  to  a  conflict  between  the 
logical  and  psychological  interpretation  of  history. 
If  the  aim  be  an  appreciation  of  what  social  life  is 
and  how  it  goes  on,  then,  certainly,  the  child 
must  deal  with  what  is  near  in  spirit,  not  with  the 
remote.  The  difficulty  with  the  Babylonian  or 
Eg^'ptian  life  is  not  so  much  its  remoteness  in  time, 
as  its  remoteness  from  the  present  interests  and 
aims  of  social  life.  It  does  not  smiplify  enough 
and  does  not  generalize  enough;  or,  at  least,  it 
does  not  do  so  in  the  right  way.  It  does  it  by 
omission  of  what  is  significant  now,  rather  than 
by  presenting  these  factors  arranged  on  a  lower 
scale.  Its  salient  features  are  hard  to  get  at  and 
to  understand,  even  by  the  specialist.  It  undoubt- 
edly presents  factors  which  contributed  to  later 
life,  and  which  modified  the  course  of  events  in  the 
stream  of  time.  But  the  child  has  not  arrived 
at  a  point  where  he  can  appreciate  abstract  causes 
and  specialized  contributions.  What  he  needs  is  a 
picture  of  typical  relations,  conditions,  and  activi- 
ties.    In  this  respect,  there  is  much  of  prehistoric 


i62  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

life  which  is  much  closer  to  him  than  the  compli- 
cated and  artificial  life  of  Babylon  or  of  Egypt. 
When  a  child  is  capable  of  appreciating  institutions, 
he  is  capable  of  seeing  what  special  institutional 
idea  each  historic  nation  stands  for,  and  what 
factor  it  has  contributed  to  the  present  complex 
of  institutions.  But  this  period  arrives  only 
when  the  child  is  beginning  to  be  capable  of 
abstracting  causes  in  other  realms  an,  well;  in 
other  words,  when  he  is  approaching  the  time  of 
secondary  .educatiun . 

In  this  general  scheme  JJire£_periods  or  phases 
are  recognized:  first  comes  the  generalized  and 
simplified -history — history  which  is  hardly  history 
at  all  in  the  local  or  chronological  seiise,  but  which 
aims  at  giving  the  child  insight  into,  and  sympathy 
with,  a  variety  of  social  activities.  This  period 
includes  the  work  of  the  six-year-oJd  children  in 
studying  typical  occupations  of  people  in  the 
country  and  city  at  present;  of  the  seven-year-old 
children  in  working  out  the  evolution  of  inventions 
and  their  effects  upon  life,  and  of  the  eight-year-old 
children  in  dealing  with  the  gj'eat  movements  of 
migration,  exploration,  and  discover}'  which  have 
brought  the  whole  round  world  into  human  ken. 
The  work  of  the  first  two  years  is  evidently  quite 
independent  of  any  particular  people  or  any  par- 
ticular person — that  is,  of  historical  data  in  the 
strict  sense  of  tlie  term.     At  the  same  time,  plenty 


HISTORY  IN  ELEMENTARY  EDUCATION       163 

of  scope  is  pro\dded  through  dramatization  for  the 
introduction  of  the  individual  factor.  '^The  account 
of  the  great  explorers  and  the  discoverers  serves 
to  make  the  transition  to  what  is  local  and  specific, 
that  which  depends  upon  certain  specified  persons 
who  lived  at  certain  specified  places  and  times) 

This  introduces  us  to  the  second  period  where 
local  conditions  and  the.  defixdte  activities  of  par- 
ticular bodies  of  people  become  prominent — 
corresponding  to  the  child's  growth  in  power  of 
dealing  with  limited  and  positive  fact.  Since 
Chicago,  since  the  United  States,  are  localities 
with  which  the  child  can,  by  the  nature  of  the  case, 
most  effectively  deal,  the  material  of  the  next 
three  years  is  derived  directly  and  indirectly  from 
this  source.  Here,  again,  the  third  year  is  a 
transitional-_year,  taking  up  the  connections  of 
American  life  with  European.  By  this  time  the 
child  should  be  ready  to  deal,  not  with  social  life 
in  general,  or  even  with  the  social  life  with  which 
he  is  most  familiar,  but  with  certain  thoroughly 
differentiated  and,  so  to  speak,  peculiar  types  of 
social  fife ;  with  the  special  significance  of  each  and 
the  particular  contribution  it  has  made  to  the  whole 
world-history.  Accordingly,  in  the  next  period  the 
cb.ronplagicai-  order  is  followed,  beginning  with  the 
ancient  world  about  the  Mediterranean  and  coming 
down  again  through  European  history  to  the  pecul- 
iar and  differentiating  factors  of  American  history 


l64  THE  SCHOOL  AND  SOCIETY 

The  program  is  not  presented  as  the  only  one 
meeting  the  problem,  but  as  a  contribution;  the 
outcome,  not  of  thought,  but  of  considerable  experi- 
menting and  shifting  of  subjects  from  year  to 
year,  to  the  problem  of  giving  material  which 
takes  vital  hold  upon  the  child  and  at  the  same 
time  leads  on,  step  by  step,  to  more  thorough  and 
accurate  knowledge  of  both  the  principles  and 
facts  of  social  life,  and  makes  a  preparation  for 
later  specialized  historic  studies. 


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